


Friends and Strangers

by Akycha, Jude



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adultery, Arranged Marriage, F/F, Fluff, Forced Marriage, Gen, Infidelity, Multi, Novella, Surprise Pairing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-20
Updated: 2011-06-28
Packaged: 2017-10-20 19:23:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 53,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/216278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akycha/pseuds/Akycha, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jude/pseuds/Jude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sixth-year Harry Potter fic in which arrangements are made for Harry to save Hogwarts. Again.  (NOTE: This was written before Half-Blood Prince came out, so it is our version of the sixth year.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. That Blessed Arrangement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which arrangements are made for Harry to save Hogwarts. Again.

"You want me to... what?" Ginny asked. She could feel her eyes ballooning to the size of saucers as she stared at Dumbledore's benevolently smiling face. She tried again. "You want me to... to do something I've fantasized about since I was _eleven_ and never dreamed I could do in a million years and had entirely given up on and..." She felt, rather than heard, her voice steadily climbing the ladder of hysteria. She clamped her jaws firmly shut.

After a moment of silent inhalations and exhalations, she finished, in a very small voice, "Are you sure it's a good idea?"

"Frankly, Miss Weasley," Dumbledore said, "if we thought there was any other way, we would take it." He toyed with something on his desk. "Please understand that this is, of course, entirely up to you. Your choice. If you don't feel you can do it, we shall find another way."

"I..." Ginny stared intently down at her pale, clenched hands in her lap. "I... I'm not of age." She looked up at the headmaster. "I'm not of age! You'll have to speak to my parents about it!"

"Professor McGonagall is taking care of that as we speak," Dumbledore assured her.

"Oh," she said. "Oh, _no_. I just _know_ what Mum's going to say."

***

"I guess I shouldn't have added all the stinksap at once," said Ron. He had bits of the potion all over his face. The greeny-amber color of it clashed horribly with his red hair.

"Or else it was too much sulphur," replied Harry philosophically, scrubbing energetically at the desk. "At least your school robes aren't burnt. I'm all holes down the front." He spoke in an undertone, aware of the brooding menace sitting at the teacher's desk, ostensibly grading papers.

"I think your potion evolved methane," muttered Hermione, who was aiming Cleansing Charms at everything she could reach. "I have no idea how you managed it."

"We're cursed," said Ron, tipping the cauldron up and reeling back involuntarily at the reek from its interior. "This stuff's like _glue,_ " he added, prying at the mess with his fingernails.

"Give that here," said Harry, reaching for his wand.

"Ron," said Hermione. "If you'll move off that chair you're kneeling on, I'll charm it clean."

A merry little succession of popping noises, not unlike a great many bottles of butterbeer opening all at once, caused the three of them to pause in their labors and stare toward the front of the classroom. The cheerful sound was completely unexpected for the Potions classroom, but even more so was the succession of pastel-colored, iridescent bubbles rising from Professor Snape's desk.

Professor's Snape's expression of outrage would have been funny, thought Harry, if it weren't a little alarming to think what he might-- no, scratch that. It _was_ funny, and damn the consequences.

As the last and largest bubble popped, a pale-green, outsized envelope appeared on the corner of the desk from which the bubbles had appeared. Old-fashioned, loopy handwriting on it declared:

"To Professor Snape. A Missive From the Headmaster Not Regarding Croquet In Any Manner Whatsoever."

Snape stared at the letter as though he expected it to cover him in colorful bubbles, then snatched it up, picking up a small sharp dicing knife in the other hand. He slit open the envelope, removed the letter, and instead of reading it, directed a pointed glare over the unfolded paper at the three students who were still staring, gape-mouthed, at this extremely interesting performance.

Ron and Harry knocked heads as they both attempted to dive into the cauldron they were scrubbing. Hermione missed Ron's chair altogether, but hit one of Harry's shoes with her charm, whereupon it became shinier than it had been all year. Or all last year for that matter.

***

Ginny felt rather breathless. She always felt a little breathless when her mother was in the room, but it was particularly fierce right now. Dumbledore was shaking hands with Dad, and Mum and McGonagall were chatting amiably over Ginny's head, and Ginny herself was rather stunned that the words, "I'll do it, of course," had somehow emerged from her mouth.

It was... pretty romantic, really. Romantic. Romance.

Ginny stood up abruptly, almost but not quite knocking McGonagall's hat off. She exclaimed, "I need a dress!" She turned to her mother and repeated urgently, "I need a dress!"

Then there was no time to breathe. There was a great scramble around the room, and much waving of wands. Her mother insisted on charming Ginny's hair into a particularly awkward crownlike arrangement, and, as there was no time to go anywhere, Ginny's robes had to be changed to the appropriate shade and fabric. McGonagall helped, of course, once Ginny had her bunched handful of lemon drops and taffies, and the latest detention list draped modestly over her head.

"There you are!" McGonagall said at last. "Miss Weasley, you are, I assure you, quite fetching."

"Oh!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed upon stepping back and looking at Ginny. She burst into tears on Mr. Weasley's second-best robes. "My little girl!" she wailed... well, would have wailed, had she not been muffled by the tweed.

"There there, dear," Mr. Weasley said, patting his wife's back. "You look a treat, Ginny."

Ginny inhaled and exhaled, then looked at Dumbledore. "So," she said, her voice not entirely steady. "When do we... do this?"

Dumbledore smiled upon her. "He'll be along shortly, dear."

***

Professor Snape seemed absorbed by the missive from Dumbledore while Harry, Ron, and Hermione frantically cleaned potion mess off a surprising number of surfaces. At this point, the three of them just wanted out of the classroom as quickly as possible.

What on earth could Dumbledore have to say to him? Harry wondered. Judging by the scowl, it was nothing good. "Here, can you have a shot at this?" he asked Hermione, tipping the cauldron towards her.

She fired a last spell at it, and whispered, "Don't look up and maybe Professor Snape won't notice what you did to the ceiling."

Ron involuntarily glanced up, then hunched his shoulders guiltily at the mini-stalactites of hardened potion over their heads. Fortunately, Snape was reading the note from Dumbledore for the sixth or seventh time and didn't notice.

"Done," muttered Harry, clanging the cauldron back into place. "Let's be off. I don't like the look of _that._ "

All three of them glanced nervously at the desk at the front of the classroom, but there were no explosions or bubbles. "I've never seen him so distracted," murmured Hermione.

"Just as well, really," replied Ron.

They picked up their bags and tiptoed-- well, Hermione tiptoed, Harry crept, and Ron banged into chairs-- towards the exit.

Just as they emerged from the classroom, a cold statement arrested them. "Mr. Potter. Mr. Weasley. A word with you."

The three of them stopped just outside the doorway. Harry didn't know whether to feel apprehensive or wild with curiosity at this point.

"The Headmaster needs to discuss some important matters with you two," said Snape, staring down at the two of them as though this would surely lead to some sort of disembowelment.

Harry blinked. Before he could say anything, Ron burst out with, "But we haven't done anything!"

"What a fascinating statement, Mr. Weasley. Be that as it may, your presence is urgently required in the Headmaster's office _right now._ Come along. No, Miss Granger, your presence was _not_ requested."

As Snape herded them along the corridor towards the stair to the Headmaster's office, Harry wondered just what the flying fewmets was going on.

***

Right on cue, the door swung open, and Ginny (as well as the two elder Weasleys) turned to face it. Harry Potter and Ron, shadowed by the glowering presence of Professor Snape, entered, looking bewildered.

She took a hesitant step toward the pair, a greeting on her lips, but then she recoiled, covering her nose. "Ugh! What's that smell?"

Harry peered at her for only a moment, and she saw splatters of something over the lenses of his glasses, and holes--one of them still smoking, she was sure of it--burnt in the front of his robe. There was a smear of something dark, mucky, and stiff up one side of his face that extended so far as to make half of his hair stand upright. He didn't answer, seemingly distracted by locating Dumbledore in the jumble of people in the room.

Ron, however, who was similarly, if not so extremely adorned, jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Snape and muttered, "Potions class." Then he focused on his sister. "Hey, Gin," he said loudly, "what're _you_ all dressed up for like that? Pink roses look _awful_ with your hair!"

Ginny felt like someone had taken a flyswatter to the butterflies that had, just moments before, frolicked cheerfully in her stomach. She looked down at the bouquet of small pink roses in her hands.

"Ah, Harry," Dumbledore was saying, "glad you could come. Thank you, Professor Snape, for bringing along our young rapscallion."

"It was," Snape replied through clenched teeth, "nothing at all."

"Please have a seat," Dumbledore said, gesturing to the array of chairs in the room.

Ginny sank slowly into one at the edge of the room. One of her roses turned back into a taffy and rolled out of the bouquet to hit the floor with a soft thud. Her parents sat together. McGonagall and Snape drifted to the back of the room. She watched as Harry sat down slowly in the chair set directly before Dumbledore.

"Now," the headmaster said, looking over his desk at the assemblage. "I'm sure you're all wondering why I called you here today." He seemed awfully amused by that, and his chuckles fell heedlessly into the silence. "Well, Harry, we have a serious problem." Dumbledore leaned forward, steepling his fingers. "We've received information that suggests that the school will be attacked by Death Eaters very soon. In extreme force."

"He's ready to attack?" Harry said, alarmed. "So soon?"

"I'm afraid so," Dumbledore replied. "While we're relatively certain we can protect _you_ , our information suggests that most of the other students would likely be killed."

"Then... then... I have to leave Hogwarts!" Harry exclaimed, springing to his feet. "I have to go away, far away..."

"No, Harry," Dumbledore said, waving Harry back into his chair. "If you go away, you'll be killed. No question about it. Unless, of course, you went back to live with the Dursleys." He staved off another exclamation with a raised hand. "And that, too, is out of the question. You must be taught to use your magic, Harry, and therefore, you must stay at Hogwarts. No," the headmaster said with a sigh, "no, we have another solution." He looked at Ginny.

Everyone in the room looked at her. She fought, unsuccessfully, against the rising blush that she knew everyone could see. She smiled at Harry as best she could manage.

He looked alarmed.

"The charm that protects you at the Dursleys," Dumbledore went on mercifully as Mrs. Weasley pulled her wand out and surreptitiously changed the roses white, "protects you because you are with family. To extend the spell to you here at Hogwarts, you would need to have family here."

"You're not bringing Dudley..." Harry began, appalled.

"So we need to _give_ you family, Harry," Dumbledore said, gesturing again at the Weasleys in general. "The oldest and strongest way to do so is through marriage."

Harry looked as though the Headmaster had just slapped him across the face with a wet, live fish. His mouth sagged open.

Ginny hid her face in one hand.

"Marriage?" Harry squeaked.

Ron apparently had wits on loan from the absent Hermione. "Aw, it'll be _great_ , Harry! We'll be brothers! I've always thought of you like a brother! Now we really _will_ be...!" He trailed off, looking around at the silence. "... Right?"

"Perfectly correct, Ron," Dumbledore said. "Miss Weasley has consented to become your bride, Harry. And you will have family at Hogwarts with you, and won't it just drive Voldemort mad to be suddenly unable to _find_ Hogwarts?" The headmaster laughed.

"But... I'm..." Harry spluttered. "I'm too young! Right! Too young!"

Dumbledore waved a piece of paper that bore a short, handwritten message. "I have permission from the Dursleys here to, I quote, do anything I like with you, so long as they needn't see you again."

Harry looked around the room helplessly. McGonagall took pity on him after a moment and said, in a surprisingly gentle tone, "There's no help for it, I'm afraid, Potter. If you don't marry _someone_ , all the students at Hogwarts might very well be killed."

***

They wanted him to _what?_

"Killed," Harry managed to choke out, focusing instead on the reason for this, this, this utterly unthinkable turn his life was taking.

"Yes, Harry," replied Dumbledore, leaning over the desk to peer soulfully into Harry's eyes. "And we have considerable reason to believe--" his gaze flicked over Harry's shoulder, presumably to Professor Snape-- "that even if we were to send you away, the attack on the school would happen anyway. We cannot afford for that to happen."

"No," replied Harry numbly. "No, I don't want anyone to be killed."

"So, this seemed like the best solution," Dumbledore said. "It will give you a connection to one of the oldest wizarding families in Britain, and one that's very fond of you besides!"

Right on cue, Mrs. Weasley gave a little sob. "Just think of it, part of our _family._ "

"We're proud to do it," added Mr. Weasley.

Dumbledore looked at Ginny for some reason, but Harry was too occupied with gripping the arms of his chair to wonder why.

"Now," said Dumbledore practically. "I want you both to understand what this _entails._ You'll have to stay married, of course, at least until the end of the war. That doesn't mean that you have to, ah," he glanced over his glasses at the elder Weasleys, "be _romantically_ involved--"

At that point, Harry's ears turned bright red and his brain fuzzed out. The phrase "conjugal relations" came up at least twice, but the utter agony of being lectured on the fact that they were too young for "marital duties" while in the same room with Ginny Weasley-- _and her parents_ \-- was simply too much to let him focus on the individual words.

Then came the ceremony. Harry never did remember much of it afterwards; he wondered at least once if Dumbledore had hit him with a surreptitious spell, or whether it was just shock. He supposed that this was what being drunk was like-- feeling incredibly clumsy and as though everything was about six inches to the left and through a curtain.

They had to mix their blood in a cup of something sweet-- fortunately the knife was so sharp it didn't hurt-- and drink from it-- and exchange rings produced from somewhere by Dumbledore, and McGonagall was standing behind Ginny, whispering her vows for her to repeat, and Dumbledore was standing in front of them, smiling benevolently (when he wasn't prompting Harry) and _why_ did all this have to happen in the same room with Snape glaring behind him as though he'd just murdered the entire man's family and was on trial for his life?

Ron, who was standing as Harry's best man, had picked up the taffy from Ginny's bouquet and eaten it absentmindedly at some point during the ceremony. Unfortunately, it turned out to be, not taffy, but one of George and Fred's Lockjaw Lollies, which meant that he was considerably muffled when it came time for him to give his responses, and they had to resort to a sort of charades and a lot of vigorous nodding.

It all went by in a blur as Harry was prompted and prodded through the ceremony. He'd never really given much thought to getting married-- defeating dark lords and the usual adolescent crises tending to curtail much wondering about the future-- but he supposed that as he'd never been given much choice about any other aspect of his life, he shouldn't be so surprised not to be given any choice in this area, either.

Ron jabbed him in the side. Dumbledore was smiling benevolently again. Harry tried to focus, wondering what he had missed.

"...husband and wife." Dumbledore looked over his glasses at the pair and added pointedly, "You may kiss the bride, Harry."

***

Ginny's pulse pounded in her ears. There was a trickle of sweat running down the small of her back. McGonagall fed her the lines, and Ginny repeated them, word for word, as if casting a spell for the first time. In a sense, she thought, she _was_ casting a spell. She was marrying Harry Potter to save all of Hogwarts.

"You may kiss the bride, Harry."

She caught her breath, unable to think for a moment. Hadn't this always been her secret dream? McGonagall gently steered her by one shoulder to face Harry. He was pale, and covered in potion goo, and smelled like... like many things that were very unpleasant. For the first time since he had come in, he met her gaze... really looked at her, and he fidgeted nervously with the sleeve of his charred robe.

Kissing Harry Potter was rather like kissing a slightly clammy stone statue. He pecked her on the lips briefly, and as she puzzled about how a human being could be so very cold to the touch, he turned away to face Dumbledore again.

She bit her lip and didn't dare look at anyone.

Dumbledore said, "Now, you both have to understand... no, the three of you must understand that _no one_ must know of this marriage. Your rings are charmed to be invisible, and you must never take them off. And you must tell no one. If you did, the entire Weasley family would be in danger. Do you understand, Harry? Ginny?" The Headmaster fixed his gaze on her brother specifically. "Ron?"

They nodded. McGonagall and Snape, at that point, firmly collared both boys and escorted them from the room.

Mrs. Weasley took that opportunity to enfold Ginny in a most vigorous maternal embrace. "Ohhhhh, my little girl!" she wailed cheerfully as Ginny struggled for breath. The veil slipped from Ginny's head and fluttered to the floor, where it promptly reverted to parchment. Ginny glanced down and noticed that Harry's name was listed under Mr. Filch's latest set of detentions.

Dumbledore patted Ginny on the shoulder. "You've done a very good thing, Miss... Ginny. You should be proud."

There were several more awkward minutes. Ginny stroked the white silk regretfully just before McGonagall turned her wedding robes back to her more prosaic school clothes. Then she gathered up her books from the floor near the door. "Well, Mum, Dad. Goodbye, then."

Her father beamed at her. "You two should come to the house for dinner soon, eh?" He glanced aside at Dumbledore for confirmation.

"I think," said the Headmaster, as he stepped forward to Ginny, "that could be arranged." He set a small white rose, the last of the bouquet, atop her books. "Good evening, Ginny."

Out in the hallway, she picked up the rose and sniffed it. It smelled like a rose, not a lemon drop or a caramel.

***

Harry felt Ron tug at his arm. They were walking along a corridor, and Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape were walking behind them. He seemed to have left his feet somewhere. He couldn't focus. When he reached up, his glasses were on his face.

"Are you all right?" asked Ron.

"No," replied Harry distantly.

"Um," said Ron.

Behind them, Harry could hear a half-whispered conversation. "...have my doubts as to whether the spell can be extended in this manner. The children are at risk!" hissed Snape.

"Yes, well, and _I_ do not approve of interfering in their lives in this way, but there were no other viable alternatives. The children would be far more at risk if we did nothing." McGonagall's accent became, as it tended to do in times of stress, far more Scots. "Ye'll do better to mind your own part in that which is to come!"

"I beg your pardon," Snape replied coldly.

"Granted," said McGonagall grandly, and then seemed to realize that the two boys ahead of them were listening to the conversation. "Back to Gryffindor with the both of you." She swept ahead of Snape and herded the two boys back to Gryffindor tower.

As they emerged through the portrait, Hermione descended upon them, aquiver with questions. McGonagall took one look at her and said, "Mr. Weasley, you'll get Mr. Potter to his room. He's had enough shocks for one day. Come with me, Miss Granger."

Ron steered Harry to his bed, where Harry sat down and stared at the wall.

"Are you all right, mate?" asked Ron again.

"No," said Harry again.

Ron sat on his own bed, opposite, and thumped the bed with his hands, looking worried.

Harry sat there, then fell over sideways to stare at his canopy.

Ron watched him for a while, then tugged Harry's shoes off, closed the bed curtains, and tiptoed out, tripping over Neville's shoes on the way.

***

Dinner in the Great Hall that night was rather a surreal experience. Ginny was never entirely sure, but she could have sworn that Dumbledore stared at her throughout the meal. And so did McGonagall, but in that case, at least, she knew it was a sort of benevolent worry. And then there was Snape. She tried to ignore him.

Her ring kept clinking against her goblet.

***

Harry spent the evening and night dreaming that he had to marry various people. Usually it was various students from his classes-- Susan Bones, Lisa Turpin, Millicent Bulstrode. Sometimes it was teachers. He dreamed he was marrying Professor McGonagall, or Dumbledore. Once he dreamed he was marrying Draco Malfoy, but Draco ran away and joined a circus, much to his relief. People kept grabbing his arm and dragging him off to marry someone else, because unless he did it, various horrible things would happen. Once he dreamed that if he could just find the right person to marry, Sirius would be alive again. Then he dreamed that he was marrying Rita Skeeter. He kept turning around to find out that he was marrying yet another person without knowing it again and again all right-- Professor Flitwick, Penelope Clearwater, Tonks, and finally a last dream in which he was marrying Professor Snape, who was wearing a dress and a vulture hat. He woke up from that one screaming.

Fortunately, his roommates were used to him waking up screaming.

He then discovered that not only had he slept in all his clothes and school robes, but that his arm-- the one people had been dragging him about by all night-- was stiff because at some point during the ceremony the afternoon before he had apparently shoved his wand up his sleeve and forgot it. Even after he removed his wand, he couldn't bend his elbow properly.


	2. La Lune des Miettes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a secret is almost too well-kept.

When Ginny woke early the next morning, she felt vaguely ill. She lay there silently, staring up into the darkness.

Yesterday she got married.

Yesterday she married _Harry Potter_.

She felt for the ring with her thumb and found it, invisible but clearly there to her touch, a heavy band of metal that bound her to her new husband.

A wedding is very romantic. A secret wedding, doubly romantic. A secret wedding to save people's lives... oh, infinitely romantic.

She was relatively certain that an infinitely romantic wedding demanded an infinitely romantic wedding night. Not a wedding night spent studying for an examination in Charms, listening to her fellow Gryffindors cavort, argue, laugh, and compare notes in the Common Room. And then going to bed. Alone.

The books were very clear on that last bit, that one should not be going to bed alone on one's wedding night.

Ginny sighed and dragged herself out of bed.

It was going to be a long day.

***

Harry was vaguely aware that he was late for breakfast. This meant no explanations as to why he had been sleeping in all his clothes: a good thing. It also meant hurrying in order to actually get something to eat before class: bad.

He was in the bathroom splashing water on his face when he noticed the unfamiliar weight on his hand. The ring. Dumbledore had told him never to take it off. Well, he supposed an invisible ring would be really difficult to find.

He ran his fingers over the contours of it, feeling the edges. It was heavy and uncomfortable and almost before he was thinking about it, he'd seized it and started to tug it off.

He stopped. An attack on Hogwarts.

Neville, another chronic late breakfaster, came into the bathroom. "Good morning, Harry," he mumbled, shuffling up to a sink and reaching for his toothbrush.

The completely familiar and ordinary sight of Neville in his red striped pyjamas, however, irresistibly reminded Harry of Snape in a vulture hat. He muttered something incoherent in response and fled the bathroom.

As the door closed behind him, he heard Neville ask the mirror plaintively, "Was it something I said?"

"Some people are just crankypants in the morning, dearie, and that's a fact."

***

Charms class was pleasantly dull. Professor Flitwick's droning lecture--something about a "Call of Nature" charm that Ginny had learned from Fred and George _years_ ago--allowed her to gaze blankly at a wall somewhere in the general vicinity of the lecture and try to quiet her mind, which had been whirling non-stop since she woke up.

There was a part of her that was still shrieking with pure joy. There was part of her cowering in horror. Mostly, she was feeling a distinct, " _What_ have I _done_?" sensation somewhere in the vicinity of those squashed butterflies from the day before.

The ring was warm and hard against her cheekbone as she propped up her head in class. She hadn't really got a chance to look at it closely. Was it a plain band of gold? When she ran her fingernails over it surreptitiously, she couldn't feel any decoration, so she had to assume so.

Was Harry wondering the same thing? What _was_ Harry thinking about it all, anyway? Now that he'd had a chance to sleep on it. What did he think of _her_?

What did she think of him? Well, besides the fact that he needed a bath.

It disturbed her a little that she didn't know. She had set him aside, like a worn-out toy, with the rest of her childish habits, so it was... startling. Astounding. (Terrifying?) Certainly surprising to have him linked so irrevocably to her life. And so suddenly! One moment she had had nothing more on her mind than studying for the exam tomorrow (oh, that's right, the exam. Had Professor Flitwick said anything about it?) and another moment she had been summoned up to the Headmaster's office and asked to save Hogwarts from attack by Death Eaters by marrying Harry Potter. It was all very bewildering.

The rest of the class was getting up, picking up their books, and she rose along with them, a little dreamily. Lunch, then Potions, she thought vaguely, and wandered out.

***

"Harry, are you all _right?_ " Hermione asked.

"'M fine," Harry mumbled, peering suspiciously at the teacher's table. Was it his imagination or had Dumbledore winked at him?

"If you're fine, why didn't you hear me the first four times I asked?" Hermione said, setting her juice glass down.

"She's got you there," said Ron. "Look, um, you're being a little..."

"What?" Harry asked, looking at his friends.

"Whacked," Ron said bluntly.

"Different than usual," said Hermione. "Is there something wrong?"

Hermione was looking at Harry, but Harry noticed that Ron glanced down the table to where Ginny sat among the fifth-years.

"No," he said. "No, there's nothing wrong."

***

She clenched her hand hard enough to drive her fingernails into her skin painfully. With deliberate speed--so as not to appear to be fleeing, and yet to flee--Ginny made her way out of the Potions classroom. En route, she caught one last glimpse of Professor Snape's grim glower, aimed at her with great precision.

What she wanted most was to reach someplace private before the tears came. That look from Snape, however, broke her resolve, and the best she could do was reach the hallway. She ran a little way to a side corridor and leaned against the wall, trying to get hold of herself.

It had been _so awful_. Snape glowered. Snape picked. He poked, he prodded, he ripped, he cut, he tore. And every single time, saying, "Miss Weasley," in varying tones of voice that just pointed out that, really, she wasn't a "Miss" anymore, and she wasn't entirely Weasley either, and he knew it. And she knew it. And they both knew it. And it was _not_ a wonderful secret.

He'd never paid attention to her before. Well, not _that_ kind of attention, anyway. He was always sarcastic and nasty to Gryffindors. But this was much more... deliberate.

She looked up from her blind contemplation of the stones to see Harry, Ron, and Hermione passing the end of the hall. Just as Hermione glanced her way, Ginny turned her back and strode purposefully off.

They wouldn't see her crying. _He_ wouldn't see her crying.

Hopefully, Snape would forget her in a day or two.

She shifted her grip on her books and the ring pressed hard into the junction between her hand and finger. Somehow, she was afraid he wouldn't, in fact, forget.

***

Harry stared vaguely at the wall as they walked along the corridor, barely aware of his two friends talking over his head. "He's been like this all day!" Hermione hissed.

"Well, maybe he's got a lot on his mind," Ron replied weakly.

"Like _what?_ " Hermione shot back.

"Ummmm. Hedwig! Yeah, I bet he's worried about Hedwig!" Ron said hurriedly.

Hermione frowned. "What's wrong with Hedwig?"

"Off her feed! Sore wing! Caught in a hurricane, y'know!"

There was a deafening silence from Hermione.

What if it didn't work? What if they attacked anyway? After all, the Dementors were able to find him the summer before last. Of course, he hadn't actually been in the house at the time. But Dudley had been there. Wasn't the spell something to do with blood relations? Did it not work on Dementors? Why didn't Dumbledore explain things more fully? Could all of Hogwarts be interpreted as his _home_ if he had... er, relatives here? Snape didn't think it was going to work... Why not? And why didn't McGonagall--

"Harry, that staircase is gone!"

"Watch out!"

Harry's left foot came down on nothing and he staggered, his schoolbag pitching forward and pulling him further off-balance. Parchments and a book fell free before his suddenly focused and horrified gaze to drift to the stone floor several stories below; a bottle of magical ink followed and broke in a rainbow splash vertiginously located far, far beneath him.

Hermione grabbed his hand and unceremoniously yanked him back. The two of them narrowly missed colliding with a statue of Ursula the Unencumbered.

Harry leaned against the wall and stared at Hermione, who carefully detached her hand from his. "So," she said after disentangling their fingers. "Is there something you want to mention?"

"Um, thank you?"

Harry heard the distinct sound of Ron smacking his forehead behind his shoulder. Hermione just closed her eyes.

***

How could one feel quite so alone, surrounded by one's friends and classmates? Ginny flicked a glance down the table to where Harry sat with Ron and Hermione. Harry looked entirely preoccupied, but then again, he always looked that way these days. Ron was talking nonstop, looking back and forth between Harry, who was staring at his plate, and Hermione, who was frowning at Harry.

The more she tried to pay attention to her friends' conversation, the more her mind slipped to blank contemplation of her invisible ring. In comparison, Letty Lydgate's rhapsodizing about the quality of Terry Boot's voice, hands, and other body parts just sort of melted into insignificance.

Would it work, after all this? Professor Dumbledore hadn't really explained the spell he used to protect Harry at the Dursleys' house, and hadn't explained how he was going to extend it to cover all Hogwarts. How could he make Hogwarts unfindable for Voldemort? Hadn't Tom Riddle gone to Hogwarts, after all? He knew exactly where it was! And what about the Death Eaters? Could they find it? After all, most of them had attended Hogwarts too, and some of them might have been like Fred and George in knowing every secret way in or out.

She looked down the table again, and accidentally met Hermione's gaze. Startled, she gave her a small smile and looked back at her plate hurriedly. She fervently wished that Hermione had been there as her maid of honor. At least she'd have someone to talk to.

***

Harry was really rather pleased with how well he'd pulled things together over the past few days. He'd managed to keep everything under wraps and had started acting more normally-- Hermione had stopped asking him what was wrong. It was very important, he told himself, to behave as though nothing were different, and to keep it all perfectly secret.

He thought about what would happen if it _weren't_ a secret, and winced. Secret Wedding of the Boy Who Lived, the headlines would say. Or... worse things, even. Underage Love Affair Ends In Shotgun Wedding For Harry Potter! Did wizards have shotgun weddings? That was a strange phrase, come to think of it. Maybe it was more appropriate to call it a "wedding at wand-point" or something.

He shook his head and attempted to concentrate on transfiguring a pumpkin into a cuckoo clock. For some reason the best he could manage was a very old-fashioned wind-up alarm clock with bells on the top. He picked it up and absently set the alarm for half-past eleven.

Ron was trying to get the tendrils on his very orange cuckoo clock to go away, without much success. "Why would I want a cuckoo clock anyway?" he muttered.

Hermione set hers aside. "It's a good exercise, nice and fiddly. Harry, what happened to yours?"

Harry set the clock down. "It works, that's all that really matters." At that point, the alarm chose to go off and Harry discovered that the on/off button had mysteriously vanished. It was a very loud alarm.

***

"Well," Hermione was saying. "In the Muggle world, people dress up for Hallowe'en, sometimes as witches or wizards, but really anything scary... or pretty much anything at all."

Ginny sat back, staring up at the common room ceiling. The room was surprisingly empty and quiet that evening; it was nice to have the most comfortable chairs by the fire to themselves. "That sounds fun. We hardly ever have dress-up." She sat up suddenly. "That's it! Why don't we have a Muggle-style Hallowe'en party right here in Gryffindor? We can tell people to dress up as whatever they like!"

Hermione grinned and leaned forward. "We should disallow witch and wizard costumes..."

"... Of course! But some people might dress up as Muggles instead..."

"... And we could ask in some of the ghosts..."

"Not the Bloody Baron, though," Ginny said.

"No, I suppose not," Hermione admitted. "But you have to allow that he's scary."

"What will you dress as?" Ginny asked excitedly.

"Oh, I'm not sure," Hermione said with a slow smile. "Perhaps a dentist."

"Oh, _that's_ scary enough!" They laughed and seized each other's hands gleefully. Ginny was saying, "I think _I'll_ dress as Professor Snape..." when she saw Hermione's face change.

Panic seized Ginny's throat when she realized that Hermione was staring at the place where Ginny's left hand and Hermione's right hand were laced together.

"Ginny..."

"I..."

"Harry's got a ring there too, Ginny. I felt it the other day when I kept him from falling down stairs."

"Um..."

"Rings charmed to be invisible."

Ginny slid her hand apart from Hermione's and covered her face with it. "We aren't allowed to say."

Hermione sat further forward, pulling Ginny's hands into her own. "You don't have to say. I found out myself. Now tell me... _why?_ "

***

It was cold out by the lake. Harry was always a little surprised by how early the frost came to Hogwarts; it wasn't even Hallowe'en yet. He threw another stone into the water, where it vanished with a satisfying *plunk.*

*Plunk.* He reached for another rock, but that one leaped up onto tiny legs and ran away, screaming, "Up th'middie wha hae!" in a tiny voice. For some reason, it sounded like swearing.

He picked up another one, made sure it was a rock, and tossed it. *Plunk.*

"You're supposed to skip 'em."

Ron walked up beside him, picked up a stone and skimmed it over the water, where it skipped twice before sinking. "Like that."

Harry looked sideways at Ron, then back out at the lake. "I like just throwing them."

"Oh," said Ron. Then: "What's up? S'not like you, going wandering off all by yourself."

Harry shrugged.

Ron picked up a stone and skimmed it across the water with enough force that it skipped five times before sinking with a splash.

Harry looked down at his feet.

"You're doing a good job of hiding it," Ron said finally. "I shouldn't think anyone suspects a thing."

***

"You're both too young!" Hermione fumed. "How could they do this to you? To Harry?"

Ginny shrugged, still unwilling to look at Hermione. "Dumbledore _asked_ me, and told me I didn't have to if I didn't want to. I don't think he asked Harry, though," she added thoughtfully.

"They're not expecting you to..." Hermione frowned and rephrased. "They're not expecting _children_ , are they?"

Blood thundered up through Ginny's face. " _No_ ," she said firmly. "That was... discussed." In a more strained voice, she added, "In front of my parents."

"Oh, poor Ginny," Hermione said, rubbing her thumbs over the backs of Ginny's hands. "What a mess. And with Snape there, and everything."

"I don't..." Ginny sighed and finally looked at her friend. "I don't really understand why they asked _me_ , and not you."

Hermione looked a little surprised. "I thought that was obvious. You're from a wizarding family, Ginny. They can protect themselves far better than mine." She grinned lopsidedly. "No matter how scary my parents may be to Muggles, I doubt a dental drill would put off You-Know-Who."

"I don't know about that," Ginny said, grinning back a little queasily. "Maybe he's very protective of what teeth he has left."

"What if all his power came from his third molars?" Hermione mused.

"Extraction would crush him!" Ginny declared.

"Root canals, I think," Hermione said. "More painful, and they take longer. I can't think of anyone who deserves them more."

They dissolved into giggles. After a few moments, Ginny looked at Hermione and said quietly, "I'm so glad you found out. I've been so... so lonely. I couldn't talk about this with anyone."

Hermione nodded. "Harry at least had Ron. And boys don't really understand anyway, do they?"

***

Harry shrugged again and threw a stone into the lake.

Ron looked at Harry with an increasingly sour expression. "Y'know, mate, marrying Ginny's not the end of the world. And I should know."

"Yeah?" asked Harry, rounding on him. "And how would _you_ know?"

"Had to live with her all my life," Ron replied promptly. "She's loads easier to get along with than the twins, or Percy."

"Oh, _that's_ great news," snarled Harry. "I can just be glad that Dumbledore didn't force me to marry _them!_ "

Ron took a deep breath. "What is _biting_ you? I like being your family! I thought you'd be happy, too!"

"Maybe I just feel I ought to have been, I don't know, _asked!_ "

"It's not like I was consulted either!"

"You're not the one who had to get _married!_ "

"People are risking their lives, you know that, don't you? There are lots worse things Dumbledore could have asked you to do!" And Ron turned and marched off.

***

"Oh, Ginny!" Hermione called from where she, Harry, and Ron sat in the Great Hall at dinner the next day. "Come sit here!" She indicated the chair next to hers.

Ginny made her way over to them with a small, grateful smile for Hermione. As she sat down, she said, "Hi, Ron. Hi, Harry."

Harry fumbled his fork spectacularly at that moment, spraying gravy and mashed potatoes down the front of his robes. There were derisive hoots from a passing contingent of Slytherins.

"That scar causing brain damage, Potter? Maybe Hogwarts ought to hire a nurse to spoonfeed you," Malfoy sniggered as he went past.

Ginny handed over her napkin, since Harry's napkin was already damp and crumpled. He didn't look at her or say anything as he took it.

Ron snarled around a mouth full of food after Malfoy. Hermione said, "Oh, honestly, Ron, just ignore them. Malfoy's comments are getting more and more pathetic with each passing year. The fact you still rise to the bait just makes _you_ pathetic too."

"Me?" Ron exclaimed, then paused to swallow. "He's a right pain in the arse! There's only so much I can take of his sneering face."

"You're going to have to learn to deal with him with a level head," she shot back. "Right, Ginny?"

"Right," Ginny confirmed. "Think of Dad getting into that fistfight with Malfoy's father a few years ago, Ron. D'you want to be getting into dustups with that little git when you're Dad's age?"

"'Sgood enough for Dad," Ron said stoutly.

"Oh, Harry, stop," Hermione said, pulling out her wand. "Let me get that off for you. You're just rubbing in the stain."

Harry looked up at her, then over at Ron, and got up abruptly. "Gotta go," he mumbled, and shot out of the room.

Ginny felt... not slapped, precisely, but being ignored was palpable.

Ron looked at the two girls, and some brotherly intuition seemed to seize him. "Aw, don't take it like that, Gin. He's just been off-kilter since you two..." He suddenly realized what he was about to say and physically clamped his hand over his mouth.

Hermione gave him a long-suffering look. "Ron, I know, all right?"

Ron exclaimed behind his hand, then remembered to take it away. "You know?" he said in a strained whisper. "Ginny...!"

"I didn't say anything!" Ginny replied, tense and getting angry.

Hermione leaned forward and said in a low voice, "Ron, they're invisible, not intangible. It's not that hard to put two and two together."

Ron shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck. "Just like you," he said after a few moments, grinning. "Should've known it was no use trying to keep it quiet from _you._ "

"Yes," Hermione said firmly. "You should have."


	3. Noble Daring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we ponder whether thank-you notes will be required.

"I agree with Dryden, that 'marriage is a noble daring.'" --Samuel Johnson (Sayers, _Busman's Honeymoon_ )

  
Harry was chewing on a slice of bacon and thinking about Quidditch practice when an owl fell in his porridge.

The mess splattered his robes and face, and peripherally got Ron and Hermione, who were sitting next to and across from him. Lavender Brown, who happened to be sitting nearby, was also splashed a little, and she shrieked indignantly as porridge fell into her teacup. "I was going to _use_ that!"

"Sorry," said Harry, dabbing vaguely in her direction with a napkin while trying to lift the owl out of his porridge.

"Foreign substances mess up the vibrations!" declared Lavender.

"That's _got_ to be Errol," said Ron gloomily. "I've never met a clumsier owl."

"What's foreign about porridge?" inquired Seamus Finnegan aggressively, squinting down at his own bowl as though it might sprout pixies. "Porridge is domestic, it is!"

Harry fished Errol out of his breakfast and set him on the table, where he lay on his back panting while Harry untied the letter from his leg and read it.

"I meant anything that could contaminate the _tea!"_ Lavender shot back at Seamus. "You can't get a good reading with--"

"What do Mum and Dad want?" asked Ron, dabbing the mess off his face.

"They... they've invited us down to the Burrow for the weekend," Harry said weakly.

"There's nothing contaminating about porridge," Seamus said stoutly. "Good healthy oats, grown here in the Isles."

"Oh-- well, that's brilliant!" said Ron. "We'll have a great time! Unless you think Dumbledore won't let you go?"

"Oh, no, they say they've checked it out with Dumbledore," said Harry. He folded the letter and set it down beside his plate. "They said to be sure to tell you and, uh, Ginny that you're invited too."

"It's tea that's imported," Seamus went on. "Comes all the way from India and China, _I've_ heard. Can't trust that foreign stuff."

From the other side of Hermione, Ginny said, "And you're coming too, Hermione. I'll write to Mum and Dad to make sure they know."

Lavender said, "Can't trust--! Seamus, you are _such_ a dolt. _I'm_ not even going to _bother_ to explain." She flounced off in a huff.

Seamus shrugged, grinned, and went on eating.

Hermione said, "If you're sure I won't be in the way."

Harry and Ginny said in unison, "No, of course not!" Then they gave each other horrified looks around Hermione, who looked a little startled.

Errol wobbled to his feet. "I think I'll use one of the school owls," Ginny said, eying him. "They'll get the message faster that way."

After crashing into a chandelier and a couple of teacher's hats, Errol managed to make it out of the Great Hall.

***

"Good to see you, Harry!" Mr. Weasley said, clapping him on the shoulder and shaking his hand. "How's everything going this year?"

"Ginny, darling!" Mrs. Weasley said, enfolding Ginny in a maternal embrace only slightly less choking than the one right after the wedding. "Ah! Hermione! Ginny let us know you'd be coming."

"Thank you for extending your invitation, Mrs. Weasley," Hermione said politely.

"Mum!" Ron exclaimed. "You're making sweet potatoes! You said you'd never make them again!"

"I said I'd never make them again with the twins around," Mrs. Weasley said, releasing Ginny at last and chasing Ron away from the pots with a few waves of her apron. "It took me _weeks_ to get the orange spots off the ceiling of their room."

"Have a sit, you lot, while I go rustle up some drinks," Mr. Weasley told them.

Ginny went to help her mother with the food, and Hermione followed. Even over Mrs. Weasley's constant chatter, Ginny could hear her father and Harry and Ron in the next room.

"Here you go, boys," Mr. Weasley said, popping the tops off some butterbeer.

"Thanks, Mr. Weasley," Harry said.

"Arthur, Harry, call me Arthur," Mr. Weasley said grandly. "Or at least call me 'Dad'."

Ginny could imagine the awkward, tongue-tied smile on Harry's face and shook her head over it.

It was a cheerful business, everyone assembling for dinner, though not nearly as crowded as it usually was during the summer. Mr. Weasley managed to slap Mrs. Weasley's bum as he sidled past her, drawing an exasperated but affectionate, "ARthur! The CHILdren!"

At last they were settled, and passing food around the table.

"So, Hermione, Ginny said you'd figured it out on your own," Mrs. Weasley said.

At the same time, Mr. Weasley asked, "How're your classes going, Harry?"

Conversation flowed around Ginny. Mr. Weasley eventually got around to asking how Ron and Hermione liked being prefects this year, and Mrs. Weasley reminisced about the prefects in her day.

"Remember Helen Climpson, Molly?" Mr. Weasley said with a grin and a wink.

"Do I ever!" Mrs. Weasley replied with a laugh. "She was the prefect that found us kissing in the Transfiguration classroom after the Hallowe'en Feast!"

"'Fifteen points from Gryffindor!' she said," Mr. Weasley said, laughing harder. "Then she sent you back to the tower and gave me a mighty talking-to."

"You'd think she didn't do the same with that young man of hers," Mrs. Weasley chuckled.

"Like Percy," Ron added. "But Ginny spotted him with Penelope her first year!"

Percy still being a sore subject in the house, the conversation flattened immediately. To divert things, Ginny said, "Well, the first Hogsmeade weekend is coming up soon. Is there anything you're looking forward to, Harry?"

Harry, who had applied himself to his meal with admirable enthusiasm, shrugged and continued to eat.

"I heard there's a new shop opening up," Ron said. "'Evershed, Barke, and Chewe, Purveyors of Harmless Magical Creatures.' We could go look for a present for Hagrid, Harry."

Harry perked up. "Oh, that's a great idea, Ron! Wonder if they get anything really exotic in?"

Hermione asked Mrs. Weasley, "Am I right in thinking your clock has ten hands now?"

"Oh, yes, dear," Mrs. Weasley said with a smile at Ginny. "Came right home and added Harry to it. Only right, you know."

"Yes, to help the 'family magic' along, I suppose," Hermione commented.

"Well, he's part of the family," Mrs. Weasley said. "Isn't he, Ginny, dear?"

"Oh," Ginny said. "Yes. Of course."

"Of course he is," Mr. Weasley said. "I expect, though, given your history, Harry, that the 'Mortal Peril' spot will probably get some use."

"Not that it hasn't had use for Ron," Mrs. Weasley said in a repressive voice. "And _you_ , dear."

"You can't tell me that it hasn't come up for Fred and George," Hermione added.

"Well," said Ginny, "I guess Mum's got your number now, Harry. You'll have to behave, just like the rest of us."

Harry hesitated for a moment as he reached for another biscuit, then turned to Ron, asking, "Do you reckon that there are any, you know, _safe_ dragon-like creatures? Ones that are legal?"

"Dunno," Ron said, frowning thoughtfully. "What d'you think, Dad?"

Hermione looked at Ginny. "Well, he's always behaved as well as anyone could hope, I suppose."

Ginny nodded slowly, looking past Hermione at Harry, who hadn't so much as glanced at her.

"Well, son, I dunno about _safe_ dragony things. You're thinking about Hagrid? He doesn't really go for _safe_ now, does he?" Mr. Weasley said, pushing back from the table with a contented sigh. "Wonderful dinner, Molly, simply splendid," he interjected, shooting his wife a sweet smile. "How many years have we been together, and I never get tired of your cooking."

"Oh, _you_ ," Mrs. Weasley said, swatting his arm.

They'd done this for years, Ginny thought. But she'd never really _noticed_ it before. Her parents had always bandied affectionate little comments back and forth, swatted each other on the bum, reminisced fondly about their courting years at Hogwarts. Why hadn't she noticed it, really noticed it before?

"That's true," Harry said in a depressed tone of voice.

"There's your problem," Mr. Weasley continued, standing up and starting to collect the dishes in arm's reach. "Hang on, let me think a bit," he said, carrying dishes away to the sink along with Mrs. Weasley.

"It would probably be better to ask at the shop," Ginny said. "Surely they've got experts there."

Hermione added hastily, "And probably a catalog, I would think."

Harry said, "You're probably right. Maybe there's something that'll be in the catalog they wouldn't think of otherwise."

Ron laughed, "Just no flobberworms or blast-ended skrewts."

Ginny stood up abruptly, having just spotted her parents kissing fondly before coming back to the table. "I... I have to go." And she turned on her heel and fled the room.

Behind her, she heard Ron say, "What's up with _her_?"

And then another chair scraped the floor, and she heard Hermione's voice say, with a snarl, " _Boys_ ," just before she heard Hermione's footsteps coming after her.

***

Harry watched Hermione go, feeling utterly bewildered. He looked over at Ron and saw his confusion reflected in Ron's expression. "What was that about?" he asked hopelessly.

Ron shrugged. "Beats me. One moment we're talking and the next--" He waved a hand expressively.

"I wish I knew what we'd done," said Harry, trying to be annoyed but only managing plaintive.

"Don't worry. I'm sure Hermione will be more than happy to tell us all about _that_ ," replied Ron in doomful tones.

"Boys!" called Mrs. Weasley. "Come and have coffee with us in the living room!"

They got up and wandered into the living room, where Mr. Weasley clapped Harry on the back again. "Girls gone upstairs, eh?" he said. "Well, they'll have things to discuss."

Mrs. Weasley poured the coffee and smiled at Harry. "Don't worry," she said.

"Oh, no, of course not," he replied weakly.

***

Ginny didn't say anything when Hermione came into the room, just lay there, face in her pillow.

"Ginny?" Hermione said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Ginny, he doesn't _mean_ to hurt your feelings."

Ginny sat up and said, "What?" as she wiped her face.

"Harry," Hermione said. "He doesn't mean to be an insensitive prat. He's just a sixteen-year-old boy."

Ginny nodded, not exactly trusting her voice at the moment to anything more than monosyllables. She set her forehead on Hermione's shoulder and sighed.

Hermione put an arm around Ginny. "He's been like this for weeks, though. What...?"

Ginny struggled to swallow the lump in her throat. "My parents," she said hoarsely. "I'd never really noticed before how much they just... _like_ each other."

"Oh." Hermione sighed. "Yes. And the contrast is..."

"... Vivid," Ginny finished.

"Yes."

They sat there quietly for a while. Then Ginny said, "I'm not _hurt_ so much as _angry_ , you know."

"Mm."

Ginny sat up. "No, really." She scrubbed at her eyes with the heel of her hand. "I'm angry and frustrated."

Hermione nodded. "I can see that. But _I'd_ be hurt if one of my friends suddenly stopped talking to me."

Ginny sighed. "I suppose you're right."

"Why haven't you _talked_ to him about it?"

A disbelieving stare was Hermione's answer. "How?" Ginny exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. "I can't discuss it with him in the Gryffindor common room. And he avoids me so thoroughly that I can't precisely convince him to go for a _stroll_ with me around the lake, can I?" Ginny lunged to her feet and paced the small stretch of floor in her room, gesticulating angrily. "Oh, Professor Dumbledore, can I please use your office to discuss our marital troubles? Professor McGonagall, could I please use your office to strip the flesh from my husband's bones?"

"Sounds messy," Hermione said with a smile.

Ginny burst out laughing and fell backward across the bed.

"Married a month and already needing a marriage counselor," Hermione said mournfully down at Ginny.

"Hah," Ginny replied. "Is that a Muggle thing? I don't think wizards _have_ marriage counselors."

"Nor therapists," Hermione said wryly. "Alas."

"I don't want to know, do I?"

"No, probably not."

Ginny sighed. "So what do I do? I can't keep being the silent, unseen, avoided secret wife. I didn't _exactly_ do this for my health."

"Well, you did it for everyone's health," Hermione pointed out, "including your own."

"Yes. But _what_ do I _do_?"

Hermione bit her lip thoughtfully. "Well," she said after a moment. "You _could_ try the Room of Requirement."

"Say." Ginny sat up. "That's a good idea."

"And if _you_ summon the room, it'll have all the things in it you'll need," Hermione added.

"Things to throw at him," Ginny said gloomily.

"Padded walls," suggested Hermione.

"A single straight chair," Ginny said with vicious glee.

"Bataca encounter bats?"

Ginny paused. "What're those?"

Hermione waved a dismissive hand. "Muggle joke. They're for hitting people with without hurting them."

"What's the use of that?" asked Ginny. "Now, some shackles and chains..."

"Kinky," said Hermione.

"Eeeeuuuuurrrrggcckkkk!" said Ginny, flinging herself back onto the bed and covering her head with a pillow.

***

To Harry's vast relief, everyone seemed to expect him to sleep in with Ron, rather than... with Ginny. It was all just taken for granted that everything would be as usual. Mr. Weasley did start to make a joke about it, but Mrs. Weasley shut him up by levitating an entire frosted cupcake into his open mouth.

After they were bedded down for the night, Harry found himself listening for voices from the next room over and hearing only an ominous silence. Finally he reached over and poked Ron, who responded with a sleepy, "Whaaaat?"

"I don't hear anything from Ginny's room."

"What d'you expect t'hear, fireworks? Gin and Hermione aren't Fred and George."

"Do you think they're asleep?"

"Whispering, more likely. Who cares?"

Harry rolled over and punched at his pillow. After a moment, he asked, "You don't suppose they're talking about me, do you?"

"Nah," yawned Ron.

***

"I'm sure he just needs to get used to it," Hermione said, watching Ginny pace. "It's all been a shock to him."

"I'm sure it has," Ginny said reasonably, glancing aside at where Hermione sat on the bed. "But the question is, how am I to get him somewhere, even the Room of Requirement, to talk to him?"

"You could just _ask_ him," Hermione suggested.

"Yes, well, I might've done that before," Ginny said with a wry smile. "That was when he'd actually acknowledge my existence. I suspect the only way I could get him to acknowledge my existence right now would be to play Quidditch in the nude."

"No," Hermione deadpanned. "He's looking at the ground so much I doubt he'd notice if you flew overhead. How about challenging him to a duel?"

"But he never pays attention to anything I say," said Ginny. "I'd get off three jinxes before he noticed I was in the same hallway!"

"Well, if he's going to hand you an edge like that," said Hermione, "it'd be a shame not to take advantage of it."

They both laughed. After a moment's silence, Hermione said, "I'm sorry."

Ginny shrugged. "Not your fault. None of it's your fault. Not the wedding, nor the attack, nor my husband the prat, nor Snape..."

Hermione fixed her with a piercing gaze that made her look not unlike McGonagall. "What about Snape?"

With a nervous laugh, Ginny waved one hand dismissively. "Nothing, really. He's just being more obnoxious than usual. I'm sure it will pass if Slytherin beats Ravenclaw next week."

***

Harry rubbed his forehead absently, then carefully wrote a title at the top of his parchment: _An Analysis of International Wizarding Relations and Their Contribution to the Rise of Grindelwald._ It looked boring. How anything related to the rise of a Dark Wizarding Lord could be boring was beyond his understanding, but Professor Binns could make anything boring. He could make glitter-covered dancing two-headed badger-corns boring. "Hermione? Do you have the notes from four weeks ago?"

"Yes," said Hermione, without looking up.

"Can I borrow them?"

"Yes," said Hermione, her nose almost touching her parchment.

"Do you think this book would be useful for my essay?" asked Harry hopefully, displaying a copy of _The Compleat Historie and Merrie Farce of Diplomacie Among Magical Nations._

"Mmm hmm," replied Hermione, getting a dab of ink on her nose.

Harry frowned a little. "What about this book?" he asked, pulling out a copy of _101 Uses For Stinking Groundsel in Potion-Making._

"Sure," said Hermione, apparently looking something up in a large tome.

Harry rubbed his forehead again. "I think I'll start with a section about how it all depends on Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and the illegal trade in their tails for Dark potion ingredients."

"Mmm," said Hermione.

"And then I'll talk about his army of fire-breathing toads that we defeated with Hiccup Hexes-- after all, nothing's more unreliable than a fire-breather with hiccups. Did I mention that my scar has vanished? And I'm hiding a dozen baby nifflers in my shirt?"

Hermione looked up. "Did you say something about your scar, Harry?"

Harry threw down his quill. _"No._ Hermione, are you ignoring me?"

She thought about it for a moment. "Yes, I suppose I am."

 _"Why?"_ Harry ran the fingers of both hands through his hair, leaving a smudge of ink on one temple and his glasses slightly crooked.

Hermione bit the end of her quill thoughtfully. "Because turnabout is fair play." Then she went back to making notes.

"What is _that_ supposed to mean?" Harry reached across the table and touched the edge of her parchment. "C'mon, Hermione, give."

Hermione looked up again, but her expression was not favorable to conversation. "No one likes to be ignored, Harry. Especially when she thought she was your _friend._ "

"What? I haven't been ignoring you," said Harry, utterly baffled.

Hermione looked at the ceiling, as though a mantra of patience might be printed there. "No. Not me. Ginny."

Harry blanched. "It's just all very confusing."

"Yes, well, you're not improving things by acting as though she's got cooties."

"I didn't--!" Harry glanced around, then lowered his voice. "I didn't want to do this!"

"Well, do you think it was _her_ idea, either?" Hermione shot back at him. "The least you could do is go on treating her as a friend instead of pretending that she's suddenly caught the _plague._ She's not going to... to demand that you start living in a cottage and having _children_ for Merlin's sake, that idea frightens her just as much as it does you. More."

"More?" said Harry skeptically.

"Harry," said Hermione tiredly, "you're not the one who'd have to be pregnant at school. Imagine the scandal. Not to mention the whole labor thing. If you think regrowing bones is painful, _you_ try squeezing a baby out of--"

Harry clapped his hands over his ears. "I'm not listening! I'm not listening!"

Hermione reached over and batted his hands away. "You'd better _start_ listening," she told him in a voice that brooked no nonsense. And while he sat there gaping at her, she swept her essays and books into her bag and marched off.

***

Hermione pulled the curtains firmly around her bed and cast an Imperturbable charm on them. "There," she said. "Now we can talk without the others hearing when they come back."

"You're sure you don't need to do rounds or anything?" Ginny asked.

"My night off," Hermione said, "and I got all my work done in the library earlier."

"Found anything on the spell yet?"

Hermione shook her head. "What about you?"

"I've pored through more books than I ever wanted to see," Ginny sighed. "Every mention of 'family'. Stumbled on some very shocking, yet somehow informative, books that I'm not sure should be out of the Restricted Section. But I haven't seen anything _useful_."

"Sometimes," Hermione said with frustration heavy in her voice, "I think the wizarding world would be vastly improved by one really dedicated person creating indexes for every spellbook in Hogwarts library."

"I'm surprised you haven't done it," Ginny said with a touch of a smile.

Hermione snorted. "Like I've ever had time? If I haven't been studying, there's been some crisis Harry wanted me to help investigate."

"Or you've spent time as a statue," Ginny said ruefully.

"That wasn't your fault," Hermione said. "Don't get started down the same path of 'everything is my fault' that Harry's on. Just because you're _married_ to him."

"Wasn't it my fault then?" Ginny wondered.

"Tom Riddle was commanding the basilisk, Ginny," Hermione said severely. "Only he or Harry could do that. There's only two Parselmouths around, after all."

"Three," Ginny corrected quietly, avoiding Hermione's eyes.

Hermione stared. "What?"

"Three," Ginny said again. She looked up in time to see the realization dawn in Hermione's face.

"Why didn't you..." Hermione started.

"Tell anyone?" Ginny finished. "Oh, come on. After watching what happened to Harry when people discovered he was one, and then seeing it happen again when that cow Skeeter got hold of the information?"

"No," Hermione said. "No, I suppose not. Does Harry know?"

"No," Ginny said. "And he won't know. And my family doesn't know. No one knows but you, now."

"How... were you born one?" Hermione asked.

"Oh, no," Ginny said. "At least, I don't think so. It wasn't until I got the diary. Riddle spoke to me in Parseltongue, and I just... started to understand. He told Harry in that last fight that he poured some of himself into me."

"You heard that last fight?"

"Oh, yes. I didn't tell anyone that either. I was in a trance, not unconscious. I think he did that on purpose, the vicious little bastard." Ginny played with the ends of her hair, running it through her fingers. "I guess some of Tom Riddle got left behind."

Hermione watched her for a long moment. "You and Harry have a lot in common, you know."

"I know." Ginny gave a short laugh. "Harry doesn't, though. Or at least he doesn't _remember_." She paused, looked up at Hermione. "You won't tell him, will you? He... I don't want him to decide to talk to me because he feels _guilty_ or like he _has_ to."

"No, of course not," Hermione said. "Though _you_ might want to tell him someday."

Ginny shrugged. "I suppose. It's funny. Last year, he was Shouting Harry. Now he's Sullen and Silent Harry. Wonder what fun next year will bring?"

"Perceptive and Cheerful Harry?" Hermione said hopefully.

The two girls looked at each other and said, in unison, "Naaaah."

***

"Good practice," said Ron. "Did y'see me send the ball all the way down the field with a Scudamore Save?"

"Yeah," said Harry, who had spent most of the practice either avoiding or trying desperately to act normal around Ginny.

"I bet Hermione's running herd in the Common Room. Let's go up there and have a game of chess," Ron suggested.

"Um, we could go see Hagrid," replied Harry, searching desperately for an alternative.

Ron gave Harry an odd look. "Is he back, then? He said he'd be gone for a fortnight and not to touch the cabbages on account of the exploding thing."

"Oh, yeah. Right."

"So let's go in. It's getting colder than Durmstrang out here."

"I don't really feel like hanging out in the Common Room, is all," Harry said, trying very hard to be casual about it.

"Why not?" Ron gave him a look that suggested he thought Harry had finally gone round the twist. "No one thinks you're mad; people actually believe you; Malfoy and his gang aren't going to show up in _our_ Common Room, and I'm a prefect! What's not to like about sitting in our own Common Room?"

Harry kicked a small rock. It stayed a rock. "Hermione told me off yesterday and I'm kind of avoiding her."

Ron sat down on a stone railing. "What about?"

"Ginny." Harry sat down on the opposite railing and scuffed a pebble along the ground with the side of his shoe. "And I'm tired of being lectured about it. Like it's any of her business anyway."

"You know how Hermione gets."

"Yeah, I know. But she's not the one who had to-- you know! She doesn't have to deal with all this!"

"Uh, Harry?" Ron said hesitantly, and looked uncomfortable when Harry glanced over at him. "She does, kinda. I mean, she _is_ friends with both of you..."

"What has _that_ got to do with it?" Harry muttered.

"Well, it's not like you've been handling Ginny very well," Ron pointed out. "She's a girl, her feelings will be hurt."

"Don't you start!" said Harry, sliding off the railing where he'd been sitting.

Ron flushed. "Look, Hermione probably had a point. She usually does. I know this is all--" he flapped his hands about helplessly-- "weird, but we have to stick together and stay friends. Ginny too."

Harry just stared at him, glowering.

Ron jumped off his railing. "C'mon, let's go inside before we freeze."

Harry followed him, rubbing angrily at his forehead with the back of his hand.

***

Ginny was waiting to talk to Professor Flitwick when she heard the piercing tones of Colin Creevy exclaiming, "Harry! Harry! So cool to see you here!"

She ducked her head and hid a grin when she heard Harry's response of, "Uh, Colin, you see me here _every_ Tuesday."

"Yeah, but it's just so great every week!"

"Ah, um, thanks, Colin."

"I took a bunch of new pictures, Harry, want to see them in the common room tonight?"

"Uh, maybe. How are, um, your classes going?"

"Oh, just fine, Harry, thanks for asking! Y'know, Potions is almost like having you in class with us!"

"Oh. Um. Really?"

"Yeah! Because Snape is treating Ginny almost like he treats you these days! It must be because she's such an amazing Chaser and he's jealous, right, Harry?"

Ginny looked around for a way out of the queue to talk to Flitwick. She could talk to him later.

"Right, Colin."

"Like two days ago, he stood over her and watched her until she dropped a whole bottle of turnip blood into her cauldron and it _exploded_! Then he told her she was just as bad as you! Isn't that cool?"

Ginny gritted her teeth and fled. Someday, she would have to drop _Colin_ into her cauldron. She was sure she'd get extra points from Snape for that.

***

Harry stared glumly at the grade on his Transfiguration homework. He wasn't the best in the class, but he should be doing better than this, as Professor McGonagall remarked in red ink at the top of the paper. Across the room, Neville had accidentally turned his foot invisible, and a cluster of students and the professor were crowded around him attempting to reverse the magic. Harry sighed and stuffed his books and parchments all anyhow into his bag and prepared to follow Hermione and Ron out of the room.

"There, Longbottom, that should fix it. A good strong spell, just be more careful of your aim next time," said Professor McGonagall. "Well, what are you all waiting for? Be off with you. Except for you, Potter, I'd like a word."

Harry looked up, startled, to see Professor McGonagall gesturing towards the open door of her office. "In you go, Potter, don't hang about. Sit down. Tea?"

"Um, sure," he said, setting his bag by his feet. "Er, Professor, I don't know... I mean, what is it you wanted to talk to me about?"

She set a teacup in front of him and tapped it with her wand. "Sugar? Milk?"

"Er, yes."

She tapped the cup twice more and handed it to him. "Ginny Weasley," she said, and sat down behind her desk.

His stomach dropped. He would have liked to take a sip of tea but he didn't quite trust his hands.

McGonagall tapped her own teacup once and wrapped her hands around it, watching him over the rim. "I suppose I should call her Ginny Potter now," she said, "but the secrecy _is_ very important."

Harry's stomach did something twisty and unpleasant.

"In any case, Potter, while I do realize that all this is a shock to you, it was my understanding that you were friends with the girl." She took a sip from her teacup, her watchful gaze never leaving Harry's face.

"Uh, er, yeah. I am," he muttered, and took a sip of tea. It was too hot and he suppressed a yelp.

"Ah," said Professor McGonagall. The silence stretched into uncomfortable moments before she added, "Of course, Professor Dumbledore made it clear to you that the marriage is meant to be one of friendship and family."

Harry felt his face grow hot and he carefully put the teacup down on the edge of the desk. "Yes," he allowed.

"Given that, Potter, I've been very disappointed in your behavior."

Being told off for the third time in as many days just seemed supremely unfair to Harry. He felt a solid core of anger somewhere underneath the tidal wave of embarrassment. "Well, Professor, it hardly seems fair to me," he managed to say fairly steadily. "I know I'm a bit young to have a choice about anything, but getting married is something most people _do_ have a choice about."

"No," she replied, "It isn't fair, Potter." Harry blinked, feeling the wind die down in the full and billowing sails of his indignation. "But it _isn't Ginny Weasley's fault._ If it's anyone's fault, it's Professor Dumbledore's or ours, the Order's. Believe me, if she had refused, we would have found someone else. We need to protect the school." She paused to take a sip of tea. "If anything, she's sacrificed more than you, because she _did_ have a choice, Potter. And as you point out, you didn't."

Harry looked down at the knees of his robes, struggling with resentment.

"I was willing," Professor McGonagall went on, "to contemplate this plan because I had confidence in your ability to deal with this situation. I have to say that I've been very disappointed in your lack of maturity, Potter."

Harry felt his face grow hot again.

McGonagall eyed him shrewdly. "Very well, run along. And don't forget about the homework due next week."

***

"Miss _Weasley_ , perhaps you can tell us three common uses of powdered kraken hide?"

Ginny twitched very slightly as Snape called her name, and felt her back tensing as if for Quidditch. She cleared her throat, thought wildly. Powdered kraken hide? Was that even in the reading for today? "Um. Antidotes for marine poisons?"

Snape stood over her, looking down his long, hooked nose. "That's one guess."

"Uh. Neutralization of runaway transfiguration formulas?"

"That's two guesses."

She gritted her teeth. No, it would be just _too easy_ for him to tell her that her first guess was wrong and move on to someone else. "Summoning the giant squid from the lake and convincing it to tap dance in bright red shoes on the highest tower of Hogwarts?"

There were a few giggles around her, and Snape continued to stare at her. "Very a _mus_ ing, _Miss_ Weasley. Oh, yes. I am _so_ amused that you will give me a two-foot essay on _all_ uses of powdered kraken hide next class. And ten points from Gryffindor for your cheek."

Ginny sighed as quietly as she could manage. An extra essay and ten points off in the first five minutes of class. That had to be some kind of record, even for Harry.

***

It is highly disconcerting to be worrying about something and to look up and see it happening; for one thing, it gives one the unpleasant feeling that one might be hallucinating. Harry rounded the corner and started down the corridor to the Potions classroom just in time to see Ginny leave the class in tears-- a sight that echoed his thoughts too closely for comfort. She fled precipitously down the hallway, choosing to turn down a different corridor instead of passing him by, so that he had no chance to catch her. No chance at all, even if he hadn't been frozen in shock.

Other students started passing by and entering the classroom as he stood there. Slowly, he picked up his bag of schoolbooks and went into the Potions classroom.

Snape was as unpleasant as usual, but Harry barely noticed what he was saying. The cold rage in the pit of his belly flared every time he met the man's eyes, so he tried to keep his gaze down. At the end of class, though, when everyone was packing up to leave, Harry discovered that he wasn't leaving.

"You go," he said quietly to Ron and Hermione. "I'll catch up."

Hermione gave him a worried look. "Don't do anything foolish," she said, in a tone of voice that indicated she knew _that_ was a hopeless cause, and the two of them slipped out.

"Is there some reason you're taking so long to pack your bags, Potter, or does your incompetence extend that far?" inquired Snape from the front of the classroom as the door closed behind the last of the Slytherins.

Harry threw the rest of his notes into his bookbag and turned to face Snape, his chin rising stubbornly. "There's a reason."

"Then by all means enlighten me," replied Snape. He glanced away, pretending disinterest, but Harry could tell that Snape was just as focused as he was.

"Leave off Ginny. She can't help-- what happened."

"How _gallant_ of you, Potter," he sneered, while tidying stacks of essays and racks of potion bottles on his desk. "Defending your little bride."

Harry flushed. "There's no call for you to be nasty to her just because you hate me. What do you think you're doing anyway?"

"What do I think I'm doing?" asked Snape, his voice dangerously low. "I think that I'm doing something you have singularly _failed_ to do, Potter. I'm treating her as your _family._ Whereas _you_ have ceased to treat her even as a _friend._ "

"I... I don't understand."

Snape placed his hands carefully on his desk, pushed himself to his feet, and stood there, hunched and brooding like a gargoyle. "Obviously you don't understand. For surely you wouldn't endanger our entire mission and the school of Hogwarts on _purpose,_ would you?"

"I'm not endangering anyone!" Harry yelled back. "I went through with it, didn't I? Not that I had a choice..."

"You egotistical little fool," barked Snape. "Did you think a marriage was nothing but a ritual?"

Harry fell silent. Snape stalked around the teacher's desk and stood at the front of the classroom. "The Headmaster is attempting to alter a very complex and very strong spell that operates on your blood family, Potter. This spell _potentially_ has the power to protect all of Hogwarts, yes... but all of that rests on your having family here. And that, I would hardly need to point out to a concussed kneazle, rests on your marriage."

Harry opened his mouth but Snape shot him such a withering glare that he closed it again.

"Yes, you were married to Ginny Weasley, and a very pretty ceremony it was too," he added jeeringly. "But a marriage isn't just the ritual. It's a spell in and of itself, and you're not performing it very well. You hardly speak to the girl, you're barely in the same room with her for five minutes at a time--"

"It's not like I wanted to--" Harry managed to get out.

"What you want or she wants or what _anyone_ wants is not an issue here!" Snape roared. "You are hardly the first witch and wizard to be married for magical purposes, so I suggest that you quit whining about it and get on with it!"

Harry blanched. Surely Snape wasn't suggesting...?

Snape eyed Harry for a moment, then lifted his lip in an impressive sneer. "Terrified of a redheaded snip of a girl, are we, Potter? Marriage is many things: the main object of this exercise is to give you family, so the family aspect was... emphasized, and will continue to be emphasized by everyone working on the spell. You _must_ start treating her as family, or everything we have been working on will fail, and I do not think you want to see that happen."

Harry looked up at Snape, who was now leaning over his school desk. "No," he replied, "No, I don't, but..."

"But what, Potter? Spit it out, I haven't got all day!"

"I've never _been_ married before!" he blurted out. "I don't know what to do!" And then he turned bright red, utterly mortified to have said this to his worst enemy at school.

Snape closed his eyes, as though summoning much-needed patience. But Harry thought that he saw the corner of Snape's mouth twitch, just a tiny bit, before he shouted, "NO ONE gets a trial marriage, Potter! Figure it out!"

"I'm only sixteen!" Harry yelled up at him.

" _That_ is in ample evidence," replied Snape dryly. "I was against this plan from the start, and you have only justified my fears."

That shut Harry up. He sat down and glowered up at Snape.

"The Headmaster is sure that the spell can be extended-- although it depends entirely on convincing it that you have blood family here. And that depends on your marriage. Now, I favored marrying you to the Weasley boy instead of the girl--"

Harry choked.

"--but Professor McGonagall overruled me, said it might destroy the very friendship that we were seeking to use. Professor Dumbledore said that the spell also might find that _future_ family was extremely important, so, as you are far too young to adopt children, reproductive potential was a factor."

Harry's ears started to turn red.

"We could easily have got around that by mating you with the Weasley girl sometime after the wedding," Snape went on, apparently enjoying Harry's discomfort, "but Professor Dumbledore said that he preferred not to interfere that much in people's lives. A fine line, but one he observes, apparently."

Harry found himself relieved that he did observe it. "I don't see what all this has got to do with me and Gin--"

Snape slammed his hands down on Harry's desk. Harry rocked backwards in shock. " _Think,_ boy!" he bellowed. "Try to think for once in your narrow-minded little life! Your marriage is about _family._ Blood ties. In order to make it work, you must treat the girl and her family as _your_ family because that is the only thing that will make it true. And it _must_ be true for the spell to work. Has _that_ penetrated your exceptionally thick skull?"

Harry nodded, feeling a little shellshocked.

Snape brooded down at him, still leaning on the desk. "To think that the fate of all of Hogwarts depends on your learning a lesson," he said. "I should be making my will, if I didn't keep it up to date."

He turned and left the classroom through the door to his office. Harry had grabbed his things and was halfway down the corridor when it occurred to him that the last remark might have been meant as a joke.

Which was absolutely the most terrifying part of the entire unpleasant encounter.


	4. Affairs of State

"Hey, Ginny!"

Just outside the Great Hall, Ginny turned at the sound of her name. She saw Dean Thomas approaching with a broad smile. She managed to smile back.

"Sooo," he began consideringly, "what kind of plans do you have for Hogsmeade?"

She raised an eyebrow. "What sort of plans do _you_ have?"

Dean fiddled absently with a piece of drawing charcoal. "Well, I was planning to wander a bit, and maybe go to Puddifoot's tea room."

"By yourself?" Ginny said, widening her eyes dramatically. "How daring!"

He eyed her wryly. "Of course not. Thought I'd ask my girl to come along with me." Then he grinned. "So. Will you? Have tea with me in Hogsmeade?"

Ginny's mind suddenly engaged. "Um, I'll, um, have to check on that and get back to you."

Dean blinked. "Huh?"

"I may be busy."

"With what?"

"Quidditch practice!"

"On a Hogsmeade weekend?"

"With Ron." Ginny smiled brightly, backing away down the corridor. "I'm not used to being a Chaser yet. So we were going to do some extra work. But maybe we can reschedule. Let me get back to you!"

Dean watched her go, a perplexed frown creasing his brow. "O-kay. Sure."

Ginny fled, feeling very strongly that there really ought to have been a manual to go with her wedding ring.

***

Harry did not like mornings after he'd had to stay up late to finish homework. He felt muzzy and grubby and distinctly at odds with the universe-- and moreover, he was late to breakfast again. Or was going to be. Or something. He washed his hands and splashed water on his face vigorously, trying to recall what his first class of the day was.

*T-tink tink.*

Harry picked up his toothbrush and started to brush his teeth, ignoring the rather acid comments of the mirror, which didn't like being ignored.

Wait a minute... what was that weird sound? He spat, set his toothbrush down, and rubbed his hands on the towel. As he dried his hands, he noticed that the familiar weight of the invisible ring was gone.

Oh--!

When Ron, who had been up just as late as Harry over identical homework, staggered into the bathroom, Harry was on his hands and knees, getting his pyjamas sopping wet while he frantically patted the floor down.

"What's up with you?" asked Ron.

"I've lost it!" whispered Harry frantically, crawling around the shower stall behind the sink he'd been using at the time.

" _That's_ obvious," replied Ron, staring.

"No," hissed Harry. "The _ring._ And it _would_ have to be invisible."

"Bloody hell," said Ron, suddenly looking much more awake. "You don't suppose it's gone down a drain, do you?"

Harry winced. "It better not have. Dumbledore will _murder_ me if--"

Ron crawled under the sink and started sweeping his hands over the floor. "Right pair of idiots we look," he muttered.

"Yeah, if anyone comes in, we'll just say we're looking for a dropped contact lens," said Harry, trying to keep the edge of hysteria out of his voice.

"What's a contact lens?" asked Ron, puzzled.

***

Ginny got up early, hoping to catch Hermione in the Gryffindor girls' bathroom. She lingered, staring at herself in the mirror, a behavior that was not counted as too odd by some of the other girls, who stared at themselves in the mirror for long periods of time quite regularly.

Lavender Brown leaned over to her at one point. "I've got a Disappearing Cream for spots and freckles, if you need it."

"Oh," Ginny said. "Um. Thanks. But I'm okay."

Lavender nodded knowingly and wandered away.

Prudence Beecroft, from Ginny's own year, leaned over from the other side. "You have to be careful about using that stuff," she whispered. "She disappeared her own eyelashes the other day, and oh, was she upset!"

"I'll, uh, keep that in mind," Ginny assured her.

Finally, Hermione hurried in, looking rumpled and distracted. Ginny had to say hello to her a couple of times before she noticed.

"Oh, hi, Ginny," Hermione said, carefully applying a line of toothpaste to her toothbrush.

"Have a minute?" Ginny said carelessly.

Hermione looked at her in the mirror, then down at her toothbrush, then back up. "Oh, I suppose," she said, setting it down and following Ginny from the room.

Sitting on one of the more isolated windowseats, Ginny whispered urgently, "Dean Thomas asked me for a date in Hogsmeade."

Hermione looked puzzled. "So? You've been going out with him for a few months now, right?"

Ginny gave Hermione a frustrated look and gestured vehemently with her left hand.

"O-oh," Hermione said. "Right. Um? So what did you tell him?"

"That I'd have to get back to him." Ginny scowled out the window, then looked back at Hermione. "What do I _do_?"

Hermione looked down at Ginny's hand, an expression of thoughtful distress on her face. "I'm... I'm not sure."

Ginny sighed.

"I suppose the best thing to do is ask Professor McGonagall," Hermione said. "Or the Headmaster, I suppose."

Ginny pictured discussing this with Dumbledore. "McGonagall," she said. "Definitely. I think Dumbledore's office will give me flashbacks for the rest of my life."

***

"We're never going to find it," moaned Ron.

"We _have_ to," Harry said, rubbing his forehead, "or else the Order's going to roast me over a slow fire. Or give me to Snape to do horrible experiments on."

"If only we could _see_ it," Ron said, pulling his hand out from under a sink with a disgusted expression. "I think Dobby forgets to scrub under here. I swear I felt something move."

Harry tipped back his head and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling. "What was that spell that Professor McGonagall used to make Neville's foot reappear?" he asked.

"That's an idea!" said Ron.

They worked on recalling the spell for several minutes before Harry remembered, " _Revelomnia!_."

"I think the accent's on the third syllable, not the second," Ron said after hearing Harry say it two or three times.

"Are you sure?" Harry said, then tried it. "You're right, that sounds better."

Harry managed to get it on his sixth or seventh try, and not only revealed the ring, caught up in the S-bend of the second sink from the end, but a tidy cache of elf-sized cleaning supplies stacked between the last shower and the wall.

"No _wonder_ we couldn't find it," Ron said wonderingly. "How did you lose it like that?"

Harry snorted, picking up the gold ring and turning it over in his fingers. "Hey," he said after a moment's consideration, "there's an inscription on the inside."

Ron peered over his shoulder and read, " _Olim externi nunc familia_?"

"That looks like Latin," Harry said. "Do you know Latin?"

"Nope," said Ron. "You'd think we'd learn it, wouldn't you?"

"I hear it's hard," Harry said absently. "Maybe Hermione can translate it."

"She probably learns Latin in her spare time," Ron said sarcastically.

"She'll at least know how to look it up," Harry said, putting the ring on his finger. It vanished as he got it into place.

"Neat spell, that," Ron said.

"Just as well," said Harry. "I was trying to think of a vanishing charm that wouldn't take my finger with it."

***

"So, Weasley, what can I do for you?" McGonagall inquired, folding her hands on her desktop.

Ginny fidgeted in her chair. "I, um." She paused, took a deep breath, and said, all in a rush, "Can I go out with other people?"

McGonagall blinked, then reached for a tin on her desk. "Have a biscuit, Weasley," she offered, opening the tin.

Ginny obediently took a biscuit, watching the deputy head of school hopefully.

"Considering that the marriage must be kept secret," McGonagall said thoughtfully, "any change in your behavior -- including your romantic encounters -- would be noticed. And, since I suspect that you have no interest in Potter... am I right?"

"No--I mean, yes, you're right, no, I'm not interested in Harry." Ginny took a small bite of biscuit and said, around it, "He's a git."

"Indeed," McGonagall said with a small smile. "Since you have no interest in Potter, I see no reason you cannot go out with... friends, and, in the future, indulge in... discreet affairs. Discreet, you understand."

Ginny nodded glumly. "But won't it affect the magic?"

McGonagall shook her head briefly. "Contrary to popular belief, marriage is _not_ necessarily a, er, romantic endeavor. Yours is supposed to be about _family_."

"Marriage, not romance," Ginny said with a somewhat sad smile. "Wasn't I supposed to learn about that in a few more years?"

"These are hard times, Weasley," McGonagall said, mirroring Ginny's smile.

Ginny sighed. "At least in ten years, I'll have something to hold over his head."

McGonagall's mouth twitched. "We're only expecting you to remain married until the war is over. I hope it will be shorter than that."

Ginny gave her head of house a somewhat sarcastic look. "How long did the first war last?'

McGonagall hesitated, then said, "You have a point. All the same, we can keep our hopes up, can't we?"

***

Harry and Ron peered into Evershed, Barke, and Chewe along with a dozen of their schoolmates. In the window gamboled strange yellow walking-stick creatures that reminded Harry of nothing so much as pencils with legs.

"Those seem harmless enough," Ron said. "Well, let's go in, then."

Fifteen minutes later, they met back up near the pencil cage at the front of the store.

"You know what the problem is, Harry? All these things are too _tame_ for Hagrid." Ron pointed at a nearby cage. "I mean, like this thing. It just stares."

Harry studied the tag, which read "YAWFLE" and had a short treatise on the habits of the animal. "You're right," he said after a moment. "It does. But it's sort of... fluffy. And cute. In a stare-y sort of way."

They passed by a cage of small, long-eared beasts that were pirouetting oddly to the sound of a nearby gramophone, and stared, perplexed, at a lizard-like thing hanging contentedly by its tail, which was knotted around a nail.

"Look at these!" Ron said, pointing into a cage full of small furry creatures that reminded Harry of hamsters.

"It says they have 'surprising habits,'" Harry said dubiously. "Maybe surprising is good enough?"

"Please don't pick them up," said the attendant, arresting Ron's hand mid-reach. He waved a mop forward. "They've just been upset by the last group of students, who all got ink in the eye for their trouble. Let them calm down a bit."

"Oh," said Ron.

"Are you finding things all right?" the attendant inquired. "I thought I heard you say something about 'too tame'...?"

"Well," said Harry, "the friend we're shopping for likes... unusual animals."

"And he likes a challenge," Ron added.

"Oh!" The attendant grinned. "Then I have _just_ the animal for you!"

***

Dean Thomas took Ginny to Madame Puddifoot's for tea, and bought her chocolates at Honeydukes. They perused books and joke things. He was good company, asking her about Quidditch and her classes and what sorts of things she liked. Although he _did_ have a tendency to keep talking about Harry Potter.

Ginny was bored.

She really quite liked Dean. He was a _nice_ boy, curse it, and they were friends. He was a decent sort unlikely to sulk because she won or lost at Quidditch, and he and Ron got along well enough.

It was awkward, being married to his roommate and all.

Not only that, but she couldn't talk to him about things that _mattered_. She couldn't reminisce with him about the battle at the Department of Mysteries. She couldn't talk to him about what happened to her in the Chamber of Secrets. And she certainly couldn't talk to him about being married to Harry.

She had a dreadful suspicion that if she told him about the marriage, he'd want to _protect_ her or something dull like that.

Hogsmeade was excruciatingly pleasant. And she was guiltily happy to return to Hogwarts that evening, and to retreat to the girls' dormitory for a little peace and quiet and random brooding.

***

"Huh," said Harry.

"What?" said Ron softly, hand over the bulge in his jumper.

"Ginny... with Dean," Harry said, gesturing after the pair with his chin.

"Well, they _are_ going out," Ron said. "We should get back to school before it wakes up, Harry."

"You're right," Harry said, peering after Ginny's back. "We can go straight to Hagrid's hut."

"Um," Ron said, "but he's not back for another week, remember?"

Harry frowned. "What did we go and get it for then? We're going to have to keep it in the dorm."

"Maybe we should've got the Yawfle," Ron said, peering down the neck of his jumper at their acquisition. "And _you_ wanted to get it."

"Well, the poor thing was in the back, all alone," Harry said, looking back in the direction Ginny and Dean had gone.

"I wonder _why_ it was in the back," Ron said. "Harry, c'mon. Hey, Hermione!"

"Hi," Hermione said as she arrived from the bookstore. "What's that you've got?"

"Present for Hagrid," Ron said mysteriously.

"I hope it's not got claws," she said, glancing at the nearby shops.

"Only little ones," Ron admitted.

Hermione said, "Hello, Harry?"

Harry looked around, startled. "Oh, uh, hi, Hermione."

"What's he distracted about?" she asked Ron.

"Ginny and Dean just went off that way," Ron explained with a shrug. The bulge stirred, and he looked alarmed and put his hand over it. It settled back down after a moment.

"It's nice that Ginny's still seeing Dean," Hermione said pointedly. "Don't you think, Harry?"

"Um," he said, feeling perplexed. "I guess. But should she?"

Hermione eyed him suspiciously. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean, we're, y'know..." He tapped the third finger of his left hand with his thumb.

Hermione gave him a jaded look. "If you're so worried about it, why don't you talk to Dumbledore?"

Harry kicked a rock in the street. "It's just awkward, you know?" he said in a low voice. "Living with someone who's going out with my wife?"

Ron broke into the conversation with a whispered, "We need to get back _now_ , Harry. It's getting restless."

"See you back at school?" Harry said to Hermione as she moved toward Honeydukes.

Hermione rolled her eyes, nodded, and went off, but Harry was sure he heard her mutter something about, "... dog in the manger..."

***

"That," Ginny said, "is the cutest thing I have ever seen."

'That' was a tiny, spotted, plush-furred griffin kitten whose ears ended in long tufts of fur. Its small wings flapped excitedly as it pranced across the floor after the bit of yarn Hermione was dragging for its benefit. Its long, thick tail lashed as it went.

Ron said, "The chap at the store said it was a challenge to train, but was entirely harmless."

"It's a griffin, Ron," Hermione said. "It's not harmless. It's going to get... big."

"He said this was a kind specifically bred to be pets," Ron protested. "He said they weren't lion-based, like the wild type."

"What are they based on, then?" Hermione inquired.

"Um. Lynxes, I think he said."

"Lynxes get pretty big!" said Hermione as the kitten pounced on her shoe.

"But not as big as lions!" Ron insisted.

"Ron," Hermione said, hastily removing her foot from the shoe, "it's already the size of a small cat and it's not even fledged yet!"

Ginny bent down and rescued Hermione's shoe from the savaging of tiny, but extremely sharp, claws. She tossed the entire ball of yarn to distract the kitten, and was successful. For about thirty seconds. The griffin ran into the curtains, which were apparently a far better toy.

"Well, we're not _keeping_ it until it's _grown_ , Hermione," Ron said, watching the billowing of the curtains and wincing at a small tearing sound. "It's going to Hagrid at week's end."

"You have to keep it for a week?" Ginny said, alarmed. "What if Professor McGonagall finds out?"

"We're allowed to keep pets," said Ron.

"Owls, cats, toads, and rats," Hermione said. "Griffins are noticeably absent from that list."

"It's... kind of a cat," Ron said.

There was a much louder ripping noise, and high up in the curtains, a beak poked through, then a pair of black-tipped ears. "Mew?" said the griffin.

***

Harry stood in front of the headmaster's door and cast his mind back to the day of the wedding. What password had Snape used? So much of that day was a blur.

Oh, yes. "Burping Bon-Bons?" he said experimentally.

The gargoyle leapt aside obligingly and the wall parted to expose the stairs.

For once, Harry didn't manage to walk in on a teachers' conference or audience with Minister Fudge. Dumbledore was quietly writing at his desk. He looked over his glasses at his visitor. "So, Harry, how are you getting along? Sit down, have a jelly baby."

Harry sat down and eyed the bowl of sweets mistrustfully. It was sitting next to a snowglobe in which a tiny castle was besieged with glowing snowflakes. "Um, Professor? I had something I wanted to ask you about."

"So many do," said Dumbledore. "I hope it isn't about that article in _The Twaddler_ last week. It was a charming article, but I'm afraid I really don't know anything about disappearing supplies of Paradisical Potion. On the other hand, if you'd like to borrow a hat..."

"Ah, no, thank you," Harry said hurriedly. "It's about... um... the situation. You know."

"I know many things, Harry," Dumbledore said. "But what is passing through your mind at this moment is not one of them."

"Er," said Harry. "I... I meant the wedding and all."

"Ah," said Dumbledore sagely.

There was a pause, during which the headmaster continued to look at Harry with an expression of benign expectation. Finally, Harry realized it was his turn to speak, and said, "Um. I saw Ginny in Hogsmeade. With Dean. Thomas." He watched Dumbledore closely, hoping this was enough information.

"A very high-spirited young man," said Dumbledore. "Part of your... I'm sorry, _my_ 'army', I believe. Served a detention with Mr. Filch a week and a half ago for putting up rather charming portraits of most of the staff on the walls of the third-floor hallway, outside the Charms classroom. I was particularly taken with my own portrait and the way my beard contained several bird's nests."

This reply, while oddly informative, wasn't the answer Harry was looking for. "Uh, yes. Um. Right. But, Professor, Ginny's _going out_ with him."

Dumbledore peered over Harry's shoulder at Fawkes, who was sleeping with his head under his wing. "I believe she started seeing him last year."

"Uh," said Harry.

"Harry," said Dumbledore, apparently taking pity on him, "are _you_ going out with Ginny?"

"No," said Harry. "I never..."

"It isn't really _fair_ , given that we've already asked her to make this kind of sacrifice, to ask her to give up romantic... entanglements altogether." Dumbledore smiled at Harry. "If you recall when I was explaining your marital duties--"

Harry felt his face start to heat up.

"--the marriage is not intended to be one of amorous relationship."

Harry felt his ears start to go red. He wasn't even sure what that meant, but it sounded... well...

"In any case," Dumbledore continued, blissfully ignoring Harry's blushes, "we do not intend to deprive either of you of an essential part of human relations by forcing or requiring a sentimental attachment between the two of you. The marriage is intended to be one of friendship and family."

Harry sighed. "I've heard that before."

Dumbledore raised one eyebrow. "Harry, we need to convince the _spell_ that you are family. We actually need to convince the world _otherwise_. It would look decidedly odd if Ginny dropped her _petit ami_ for no reason whatsoever."

"I suppose," said Harry.

"So," said Dumbledore cheerfully, "I see no reason why both of you cannot indulge in what Professor McGonagall so delicately describes as 'discreet affairs.'"

Harry felt his face go red again.

Dumbledore steepled his fingers and leaned back in his chair. "I believe that answers all your questions, Harry. Unless you _do_ want to borrow a hat?"

"Uh, no thanks, sir," Harry said, standing up and heading for the door.

As he clattered down the first few steps, he heard Dumbledore sigh and mutter something that sounded remarkably like, "Ah, to be ninety again."

***

After Ginny got into her pyjamas that evening, she planned to get into bed, pull the curtains, and have a good brood. Or perhaps curl up with the box from Honeydukes and a mystery story-- that sounded even better. She had a lot to think about-- or to avoid thinking about.

Alas, it was not to be.

"Ginny!" squeaked Letty, entering the dorm as Ginny tied the sash of her dressing-gown. "How was your _date_?"

Ginny blinked at her. "It was fun," she said, utterly at a loss to explain Letty's enthusiasm.

Evelina Urquhart, Letty's particular friend and someone with whom Ginny had established an unspoken truce at the beginning of the year, followed. "We'd heard you'd broken up with him, but obviously that wasn't true. Since you spent all day at Hogsmeade with him." Her flat tone rose ever so slightly with the hint of a question.

Oh, that was it! "I can't imagine where you heard that," Ginny said sweetly. "Really, it's amazing how rumors crop up around here."

"Amazing," said Evelina flatly. "Imagine. They were saying you were going out with Harry Potter."

Ginny gave Evelina her very best sarcastic look. "Please," she said. "I'm fifteen now. I'm a bit old for that kind of childish pash."

"You do spend an awful lot of time with him," said Letty.

Ginny sat down on her bed and kicked off her fuzzy slippers. "He's best friends with my brother, and I'm good friends with Hermione. And I'm quite good friends with him." _Or I used to be_ , she thought.

"Friends, huh," said Evelina.

Ginny lost her temper. "Unlike _some_ people, I'm quite mature enough to be friends with someone who happens to be a boy without imagining there has to be some kind of romantic thing. I suppose it comes of being raised with so many brothers; I actually think of boys as human beings." And with that, she whisked her curtains shut.

The curtains, unfortunately, did not prevent her from hearing Evelina's remarks about "redheaded temper." This did not improve Ginny's.

***

When Harry walked into the Great Hall, all the candles up by the ceiling were burning blue.

He stopped in his tracks. The Hall was packed full of people, yet eerily silent. The tables were gone, and all of the students sat on benches facing the front dais, leaving only an aisle along the center . As Harry stared, he realized that the students occupied the back benches, the teachers a single set of middle benches, and the Hogwarts ghosts occupied the front ones, shimmering bluely under the strange light of the changed candles.

On the dais two figures stood in front of the podium, both of them utterly, unnaturally still, like wax figures. They were facing away from Harry, but he blinked and rubbed his eyes, certain that he recognized one of them. He did... it was Sirius. He couldn't possibly be mistaken.

What was he doing up there, in front of all of Hogwarts?

He wanted to run to his godfather, to throw his arms around him, to see his face, but the strange silence in the Hall and all those eyes fixed on the dais froze him in place.

A deep, resonant voice spoke. "And do you, Sirius Black--"

It _was_ him. It _was_.

"--take Cedric Diggory--"

Harry's gaze shifted slightly to the other figure on the dais. It did look like-- what was he doing here? He-- he stood so still.

Involuntarily, Harry took a step forward. He _needed_ to see them, both of them-- he had so many things to say.

A hand with a grip like iron came down on his shoulder, the chill of the fingers burning through his robes.

"Let the dead marry the dead," said a voice far above him. "Let the dead marry the dead." The voice was so cold that he turned to look at his captor, expecting to see Professor Snape. But it wasn't.

It was Dumbledore.

Harry woke trembling and in a cold sweat. It was just a nightmare, he told himself. Just a nightmare, like dreaming that you've gone to school naked, or that your wand is broken and rotten inside, or that the door of the cupboard's been nailed shut. Just a nightmare.

But he didn't sleep again that night.

***

Ginny dreamed about wedding presents. They were tiresome.

Harry had escaped at some point, probably when they were transporting the pile of presents to the Gryffindor common room. Anyway, apparently it was the _bride's_ job to deal with unwrapping everything and making a thank-you list (Hermione had enchanted a quill, bless her) and pretending to have raptures over everything. No one _minded_ if Harry quietly vanished.

Ginny gritted her teeth and unwrapped another gift. It was a baby blanket enchanted with little moving animals.

"Er, thank you..."

A Ravenclaw girl a year older than her simpered at her alarmingly. "Well, now that you're married, you never know when you might need it!"

Ginny summoned up a grimace of a smile and tossed it on the pile. Thus far she'd got one present she genuinely liked, and that was the singing-apple tree from Neville Longbottom.

"Open this one next!"

"Oo, yes, it looks so mysterious and elegant!"

The box was black, tied with a silver ribbon. Ginny looked at the card's black morocco cover with a distinct feeling of recognition and unease. She opened the card; familiar angled handwriting stated _To my very dear Ginny and her lucky husband on the happy occasion of their wedding day._ There was no signature.

She set the box carefully down on the floor. "Back off, everyone." There were protests. "I think it might come from Fred and George." People hastily retreated to the walls.

She untied the ribbon with a wave of her wand, standing a good five feet away. Nothing happened.

She lifted the cover in the same manner, rather expecting a poisonous snake to leap out. However, nothing of the sort happened. The box sat there, innocently ominous and full of tissue paper.

She levitated the tissue paper out. Nesting in the tissue paper was something wrapped in green silk. She lifted that out with her wand and unwrapped the silk with another flick. A silver box.

Now she could feel the concentrated curiosity of the whole room on the back of her neck, but it was too late to stop now. "Ginny," murmured Hermione warningly, but Ginny shook her head and ordered the box to open with a wave of her wand.

Two golden bracelets tumbled out. Ginny slowly approached them. One was slightly larger than the other, but other than that, they were perfectly identical-- round, gold, and smooth on the outside, as though made to match the wedding rings. She picked them up.

On the inside of each one was engraved _Mei Primum_.

***

"I can't believe _you_ managed to sleep last night, Harry," said Ron wearily, examining the tatters of his bed curtains. "When it was done shredding these..."

"... it ran across my head," Seamus intoned, walking past them, out of the room. "Four times."

"It settled down to sleep on my pillow," Neville said mournfully. "But every time I moved, it swatted at my face." Neville's face was, in fact, covered with thin scratches.

"I don't know when it had time to do that," said Dean. "I was up all night, batting at it with my pillow to keep it off my toes!"

The much-maligned griffin was curled up with a paw over the tip of its beak, snoozing in the sunlight on the windowsill.

Dean looked at the griffin, then looked at Ron. "Think you can convince the girls to take it tomorrow night? It _is_ awfully cute."

"I'll... try," said Ron. " _Reparo_?" he said hopefully, pointing his wand at the curtains. The curtains remained stubbornly torn.

The griffin rolled over, exposing its furry belly to the sun.

"Arrrrgh," Dean said, fleeing the tableau and taking Neville with him.

"Ron," Harry said, rubbing his forehead fretfully. "I had... a really odd dream."

Ron stared at him, one leg in his trousers. "Not," he breathed, "You-Know-Who?"

"No," Harry said. "At least, I don't think so."

Ron sighed and pulled his trousers the rest of the way on.

Harry pulled out the roll of parchment provided by Mssrs. Evershed, Barke, and Chewe on the care and feeding of griffin kittens. "I suppose we should stop by the kitchen and ask the house elves for some of these things," he said. "And we can warn Dobby about the griffin, so it doesn't pounce on his head or anything."

***

Ginny managed to convince Hermione to go for a walk around the lake. To the other side of the lake, in fact, and since the weather had turned bitter they had no company at all.

"What is it?" asked Hermione at last, huddling in her cloak. "It must be important, it's not the kind of day one goes for a stroll."

Ginny thought for a moment, then burst out with, "I... I think that You-Know-Who knows."

"Knows what?" asked Hermione, her eyes widening in alarm.

"About the wedding."

"But how could he find out?"

"I don't know!" She pulled her slightly tatty cloak more securely around her shoulders and sat down morosely on a rock. "Maybe he tried to do something to the school and couldn't. Maybe it's Harry's scar-thing again."

"Why do you think he knows?" Hermione sat down beside her and put a hand lightly on her arm.

"Because I had a dream that Tom Riddle sent me a wedding-present," Ginny said dourly.

There was a long silence after that. Finally, Hermione suggested hesitantly, "It could have just been a nightmare."

"Hermione," Ginny said reasonably, "when I have nightmares, they're about going to school naked or the thing outside the window or strangling roosters!" She caught sight of Hermione's face and admitted, "All right, maybe the last is a little weird. But they aren't like this dream. It was too normal for a nightmare, too... vivid and real. There wasn't anything cloudy or horrid about it. And you were in it, too, and you're not usually in my nightmares."

Hermione looked at Ginny. "Er, I'm sorry I was in your... in the dream."

Ginny waved a hand. "You didn't do anything weird. No one did anything weird. Everyone behaved normally. Well, aside from giving me wedding-presents, since no one knows I'm married."

Hermione gazed thoughtfully over the lake for a moment. "What was it?"

"What was-- the present, you mean?"

"Yes. What did he send you?"

"Matching bracelets with the inscription 'Mei Primum,'" Ginny confessed in a low voice.

Hermione exhaled sharply. "'Mine first,'" she whispered.

***

"Harry," said Ron in a low voice. "You've been awfully quiet all day. What's up?"

"Just that dream," said Harry, randomly underlining something in his essay.

"Never known you to be so worried over a dream," Ron said. "Well, except that stuff that came from You-Know-Who. Are you sure--?"

"Yeah, I'm sure," Harry said, pulling off his glasses and rubbing his face. "Sirius was in it."

Ron blinked at him over the tip of his quill. "Harry, Sirius was in the last set of dreams you got from You-Know-Who."

"This was _different_ ," he insisted. "It was at Hogwarts. And-- and-- it was just different, is all."

" _How_ different?" Ron asked.

Harry cast around for words. Finally, he whispered, "Voldemort wasn't in it!"

Ron winced at the name, but said, "Well, why are you so worried about it then?"

"It just felt... important, somehow. Like it was trying to tell me something. And Cedric was in it. And I wanted to talk to Sirius, but Dumbledore wouldn't let me. Maybe... maybe there _is_ some way..."

Ron watched him for a moment. "Harry," he said finally, "Sirius is _dead_. You can't talk to him."

"How do _you_ know?" Harry snapped. "How do you know there isn't some way? How do you know he's really..."

"Okay, okay, you're right."

There was a short silence while each wrote another sentence in his essay.

Finally, Ron said, "So, uh, you didn't get a detention that time you stayed after to talk to Snape."

"No," replied Harry. "He just, uh, yelled at me a lot."

"That's not too bad," said Ron. "Maybe being in the Order is mellowing him a bit."

"Snape said that _he_ wanted to marry _you_ to me instead of Ginny," remarked Harry, trying to lighten the mood.

"WHAT?" yelled Ron, dropping his quill and splattering orange ink all over his Transfiguration essay. "Get off, you're pulling my leg!"

"No, it's true. He told me so."

"AUGH," said Ron coherently, pulling a disgusted face. "Thank Merlin McGonagall and Dumbledore were able to overrule him!"

"What," said Harry, pretending to be offended, "you think being married to me would be _that_ bad?"

Ron gaped at him. Then he spluttered, "No offense, mate, no offense, I love you, but--"

"It's not like I'm a _total_ monster, you know..."

"LIKE A BROTHER, HARRY!" Ron yelled desperately.

Harry burst out laughing. "I was joking, Ron."

"You were?" Ron asked carefully.

"Yes," Harry assured him between guffaws.

"Oh," said Ron.

"Right," said Harry.

"Right."

"Right!"

"Right!"

They stared at each other awkwardly for a moment and then Ron leaned over and punched Harry on the arm. "C'mon, we'll be late for class."

As he collected his parchments, Harry glanced at the clock and reflected that it was going to be the first time in their respective careers that they would be five minutes early to Potions.

***

"It was nice of the house elves to get you the bone meal and yoghurt and meat and stuff," Ginny said.

"Yeah," said Harry, trying to keep his fingers away from the clacking beak that was working its way up the long strip of bloody meat. "I just hope they're not going to be too upset about the mess we've made with it."

Ginny blinked, glancing aside at Hermione. Hermione just smiled and shrugged at her interrogative eyebrows. Well, a milestone is a milestone. Harry answering her with more than a monosyllable was certainly cause for mild celebration.

The griffin seized the strip of meat and attempted to wrest it out of Harry's fingers, shaking its head back and forth and making a tiny growling noise. Its wings flapped excitedly and it dug its paws into the rug as it tried to back up.

"What are you going to name it?" asked Ginny, trying to keep the conversational ball rolling.

"Oh, we couldn't do that," said Harry distractedly, trying to keep his school robes out of reach of the razor-sharp little claws. "Hagrid's going to want to name it."

Hermione said suddenly, "Why are we all calling it 'it'? Do we even know if it's male or female?"

Harry and Ron looked at one another. "Actually," Ron said, "I don't think the chap at the shop ever said."

While Harry was distracted, the piece of meat he was holding tore. Triumphant, the griffin dashed off with the greater part of it and hid under one of the armchairs, leaving a trail of bloodspots as it went.

"I suppose," Hermione said slowly, "that one could tell on a griffin the same way one tells on a cat."

"I suppose you know how," Ron said. "Though I don't know _how_ you can be sure through all Crookshanks' fur."

"It's easy," said Hermione. She grabbed a yoghurt-covered strip of meat out of the bowl and dangled it in front of the armchair. A furry paw swiped at it, and she moved it a little further away. The griffin pounced out after the meat, and she swooped it up in the other hand.

She gave it the meat to distract it while she tucked it, on its back, in the crook of her arm. It meeped happily around a mouthful of meat and smeared yoghurt on the front of her robes. She gently pulled its tail away from the region in question and examined it.

"Well?" asked Ginny, quite curious.

"Er," said Hermione. "I _think_ it's a girl."

"I thought you said it was easy to tell," said Ron.

Hermione looked up. "I forgot that it takes a while for the, er, _you_ know, to show," she said dryly.

For some reason, this shut Ron up, as well as turning his and Harry's ears red.

The griffin snatched her tail out of Hermione's hand with both front paws and nibbled experimentally at the tip.

"Well, since it's a girl," Ron said, "perhaps you all would like to take her for the night?"

Hermione set the griffin down. She romped away and attacked a cushion that someone had left on the floor, kicking happily with her rear paws. "You've got to be kidding."

"Ginny?" asked Ron pleadingly.

"Not a chance," Ginny said. "My roommates _like_ me now."

The cushion ripped and feathers fountained into the air.

"I wish we could say the same for _our_ roommates," Harry muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose.

***

It was late. Harry and Ron were playing chess in front of the Gryffindor fire while Hermione worked on an essay. They were the only ones left in the common room, except for Neville, who was playing host to the griffin, sound asleep on his lap following her rather messy dinner. He was afraid to move lest he awaken her, so he was attempting to read while sitting very still.

Crookshanks, curled up on top of the mantelpiece and looking as though someone had tossed a thoroughly disreputable pillow up there, kept one ear swiveled in the griffin's direction, just in case.

"Checkmate," said Ron as his queen picked up Harry's king, held him triumphantly over her head, and then tossed him entirely off the chessboard.

"Third in a row," said Harry, wincing and pressing the heel of his hand to his head as the king bounced off a chairleg. "I'm packing it in for the night."

"Aw," said Ron. "You just need some more practice." But he started pointing his wand at various pieces and summoning them back to the box.

Harry glanced over at Hermione, who was writing very fast, her parchment propped on the back of a very formidable-looking book. "Hermione, how much Latin do you know?"

She looked up, interested. "Some," she said. "I had it in school, before I came here."

"Could you translate something for me?"

"Probably, just a sec." Hermione set books and essay aside, and darted up the stairs to her dorm. When she returned, she was holding a battered hardback book in a paper cover. It looked rather unlike any of the wizarding texts that Harry and Ron were used to seeing.

"Whoa," Ron said. "Is that a Muggle book?"

"Lewis and Short," Hermione answered. "I've been bringing it to school with me since I noticed that most of our spells have Latin in them. It helps to know approximately what you're saying, _I_ think."

Harry glanced over at Neville, whose head had flopped over against the back of his chair in a way almost reminiscent of the bonelessly sleeping griffin on his lap. Hermione, following his glance, remarked, "He's going to get a nasty taste in his mouth if he sleeps with it open like that."

"Oh, he snores like the dickens," said Ron.

Satisfied that Neville was asleep, Harry pulled the ring off his finger, pointed his wand at it, and muttered, " _Revelomnia_." He handed the heavy gold band over to Hermione and said, "The inscription?"

Hermione examined the ring with open curiosity. "Very plain, practical, and traditional," she commented. "Probably excellent for the spell." She peered inside it. "Hmm."

She spent a little time looking things up in the book while Ron and Harry fidgeted. Finally, she looked up with a small smile. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, given what you've said people are trying to tell you, Harry."

"What?" said Harry tensely.

"It means, 'Once strangers, now family,'" said Hermione.

***

An owl landed in front of Ginny at breakfast, and she squinted at it for a moment before she said, "It's Hermes!"

Harry and Hermione looked over with some interest. Ron looked up from his porridge sourly. "I wonder what Percy's got to say to _you_ that he can't manage to say to Mum and Dad."

Ginny sighed and rolled her eyes as she untied the message from Hermes' leg. She said, "Off you go then," to the owl.

"What, not going to read it?" Ron sounded strangely outraged as she tucked the letter into the sleeve of her robe.

"Not here," she replied.

***

Harry stared at Professor Flitwick, absently rubbing his forehead while wondering whether he actually ought to take notes for this particular lesson. His dilemma was resolved, however, when they moved on to practical demonstration of the Avoidance Charm.

"When properly used," Flitwick declared, "the target will not even notice whatever you want them to avoid."

Hermione cornered Harry in the usual bustle and chatter of the classroom. "Harry," she whispered, "is your scar hurting?"

"No," he said, looking at her as if she'd just sprouted a sparkling horn. "I'd tell you if it were."

"You've been rubbing your forehead an awful lot lately," she said.

"Have I?" He thought about it for a moment. "Oh."

" _Well_?" Hermione said.

"I... guess it does hurt a little," Harry said wonderingly. "Not really enough for me to notice. It must have come on very... slowly."

"I think you'd better tell Professor Dumbledore," Hermione said.

"What would I tell him?" Harry said. "My scar _aches_ a bit? I'd feel like a nutter."

"You know," Hermione said, rubbing her own forehead, "you _always_ say things like this."

***

Ginny handed the letter to Hermione without comment. Hermione's eyes widened as she read it. Then she looked up at Ginny. "Your family didn't tell Percy," she said. "This sounds like he's heard of it, though. How would he find out?"

"That," said Ginny, "is what I would like to know."

"You haven't told anyone but me," Hermione said. "I haven't told a soul. I can't _imagine_ Harry has told anyone. And Ron would rather snap his broomstick over his knee than tell Percy." She scanned the letter again. "He says something about reliable sources. Sounds fishy to me. Just _who_ is he involved with at the Ministry?"

"Someone _entirely_ respectable, I'm sure," Ginny said sarcastically.

"You're not going to Hogsmeade to meet him alone, the way he says," Hermione said.

"Of course not," Ginny replied. "You're coming with me."

"I'm coming wit-- of course I'm coming with you," Hermione said briskly. "The only problem is, I'm sure he's not going to talk if he sees you with _me_. He knows perfectly well that I'm one of Harry's best friends."

Ginny thought a moment. "So, where does Harry keep his Invisibility Cloak, do you know?"

Hermione's jaw dropped. "Ginny! That would be stealing!"

"Just borrowing," said Ginny. "Besides, technically, we share everything we own now. Even Invisibility Cloaks."

Hermione stared at her for a moment, then cleared her throat and said, "I admire the way your mind works."

"Survival instinct," Ginny said.

***

An owl pecked at the window of the dorm. "Could you get that, Ron?" Harry asked, a little desperately, as the griffin clung to the front of his shirt and slurped noisily at the meat he was feeding her.

Ron, whose face was half-covered with gritty yoghurt, rose obediently to let the owl in. The owl hooted its thanks and fluttered over to Harry, only to squawk angrily when the griffin, apparently taking the owl to be her mother, dove for it athletically.

"No, no!" Harry shouted. "Bad griffin!"

There ensued a merry chase of the griffin after the owl, Harry after the griffin, and the other boys leaping out of the way.

Finally, Harry had successfully tackled the griffin, the owl was hiding behind Ron, and only Harry's bed had transformed into a bloody mess.

"Ron," Harry said, panting, "could you get the letter then?"

"Sure, Harry," Ron said, untying the missive. The owl hooted reprovingly and vanished out the window. Neville closed the window after it.

"It's from Hagrid," Ron said dubiously.

"Please let him be saying that he's coming home _early_ ," Seamus said.

"Open it," Harry said, clambering to his feet with the griffin in his hands. The griffin was curled around one of his hands, clinging to it with beak and paws and nibbling happily.

"Uh-oh," Ron said after scanning the note.

"What?" Dean said pleadingly. "Spit it out!"

"Harry," Ron said, "Hagrid won't be back for another two weeks... at best."

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" they all howled, alarming the griffin so that she leaped onto Harry's head, knocked off his glasses, and dug in all her claws.

***

"Ginny," Hermione said, poking her head in between Ginny's bed curtains, "I've something I need to talk to you about."

"Come on in," said Ginny. "Sorry about the mess. I'm working on yet another extra Potions essay. Do you know anything about blue faience?"

"I wrote an essay on it last year," said Hermione. "I can give you a list of books if you like."

"You're a lifesaver," Ginny said. "Everything I have is yours. What can I possibly do for you in exchange?"

Hermione charmed the curtains, and sat down crosslegged on the end of the bed. "Let me see your ring a moment."

"I'm not supposed to take it off," Ginny said slowly, curious.

"Five minutes," Hermione said. "This is important."

Ginny tugged it off and carefully handed it over. Hermione took it and cast the Reveal charm. Ginny leaned forward, interested. She hadn't seen it since the wedding ceremony.

"Take a look," Hermione said, handing it back.

Turning it over, Ginny examined it. Then she turned pale. "It's got an inscription."

"And you didn't know about it when you had that dream," Hermione said.

Ginny stared at the ring. "The inscription on the bracelets was on the inside too. I thought that was odd."

Hermione propped her chin up on her fist. "How did You-- Voldemort know about it? I asked Harry, and he found out about the inscription the morning before you had that nightmare."

"Is Harry still taking Occlumency lessons?" Ginny wondered.

"He doesn't talk about it," said Hermione.

"He needs to start again, then," Ginny said darkly.

"Look at it this way," said Hermione, looking significantly down at Ginny's Potions essay. "Would _you_ want to?"

"You have a point," Ginny said. "But I think we're in trouble."


	5. Admit Impediments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which exploration, like enlightenment, only serves to illuminate the complexity of our mystery.

The griffin continued distressingly nocturnal.

After a detention spent putting up Hallowe'en decorations with Filch, Harry got back to the dorm to find that his pillow was under Dean's head, as the griffin had disemboweled Dean's. Rolling up his school robes for a substitute, Harry attempted to get some sleep in between being pounced on and cries of, "Oi! Get off!" and, "Ouch!" from his roommates.

He eventually fell asleep and dreamed uneasily about having to serve a detention in a kitchen, making an endless series of wedding cakes. They were all decorated with little tombstones, except for one that had a Snitch theme. Harry rather liked that one.

Gallopa-gallopa-gallopa-SWISH!

"Mmm?" said Neville.

Gallopa-gallopa-gallopa-SWISH!

The pitter-patter of little griffin feet, although noisy, was infinitely more restful than the prickle of little griffin claws, so Harry continued to sleep lightly until the galloping went across his chest.

"Aggghkk!" he said, sitting up and grabbing for his glasses.

Neville said groggily, "She's playing with something. We'd better take it away or none of us will get any sleep."

The griffin pounced and shook her head fiercely in the dim moonlight, growling.

Harry slowly rolled out of bed and crept toward the griffin. "Here, give me that now," he said, reaching out.

The griffin twisted and tore at the thing with her front claws. Harry got hold of one end, then dropped it immediately. "Neville! She's caught a snake!"

"What?" Neville sat bolt upright in bed. "What's a snake doing in our dorm?"

Seamus rolled over and said, with irritation, "Being kept awake by people talking."

"Is it dead?" Ron asked sleepily.

Harry eyed the griffin, who was apparently attempting to eat it, tail first. "I... hope so."

"Yuuuucck," Neville said, shuddering. "She dragged it over me. I thought it was a shoelace or something."

"I just hope it wasn't someone's pet," said Harry.

"It'd be a Slytherin's anyway," Dean muttered. "So who cares if it was?"

"Throw the bloody thing out the window, Harry," Seamus said, pulling his pillow over his head.

"She probably shouldn't eat it," Ron said.

"Oh. Right," said Harry, and then engaged in a squeamish game of tug-of-war with the griffin. She was far more interested in winning the tug-of-war than in eating the snake, fortunately. Harry finally got the snake free, mostly intact, and threw it out the window.

The griffin retired to Neville's pillow to clean her paws and groom her tail.

***

When Ginny and the concealed Hermione arrived at the Three Broomsticks on the next Hogsmeade day, Percy's ginger head was already visible at a corner table. Ginny picked her way over to him and sat down. She studied her brother, noting the thinness of his face and the dark circles under his eyes. After they'd stared at each other across the table for a few moments, Ginny said, "Mum would skin you alive if she saw you looking this bad."

"Well, hello to you too," Percy sniffed.

Ginny glanced around. "No butterbeer for your sister?"

Percy sighed explosively, got up, and strode briskly to the bar.

"I'm right here," Hermione whispered in her ear.

"Good," Ginny said quietly to the tabletop, hoping this all wasn't a terrible idea.

Percy returned with a butterbeer for Ginny and a glass of water for himself. "Drinking is bad for you, Ginevra," he said unctuously, passing the bottle over to her. "Dulls the mind. You're taking your OWLs this year. Can't be too careful."

"Thanks, Percy," she replied after taking a drink. "Now what were you so very fired up about?"

Her brother leaned across the table and whispered, "I've been told that you've.... you've _married_ Harry Potter."

Ginny laughed aloud, virtually in Percy's face, despite the sudden cold feeling at the base of her spine. She covered her mouth with one hand and continued to giggle for a few moments before she appeared to master herself. "Oh, Percy," she said pityingly. "Where _did_ you hear such a thing?"

Percy looked affronted, and insisted, indignantly, "My source was _very_ reliable."

"Like Mr. Crouch?" Ginny asked in a low voice. "Whose son was a Death Eater? Or maybe Minister Fudge, who loved his power too much to see the truth until it was shoved up his nose?"

Percy shifted uncomfortably. "Reliable," he repeated. "And respectable."

"Percy," she said sadly, "why _did_ you ask me here today?"

"I wanted the truth," he said through gritted teeth.

Ginny gave him an appraising look, took a long drink of butterbeer, and said, "I don't see why I should give you any information about the family, true or false, seeing as you haven't bothered to apologize to Mum and Dad yet." She stood up. "I'd better go. I'm probably not _respectable_ enough to be seen with you."

Percy opened his mouth, then, seeing the look on her face, closed it again and scowled down into his water. Ginny waited a few seconds to see if he would say anything else, then made her way out of the pub.

***

"We could start training her!" Ron said excitedly.

"Train her to do what?" Harry asked. "Hunt and shred more pillows?" His neck hurt from sleeping on his rolled-up robes.

"Come on, Harry, just the little harness?" Ron pleaded. "And you know we're going to need a leash."

Harry sighed and rubbed his face. "I wonder how fast she's going to grow in another two weeks. She seems bigger already. Her wings have more feathers."

Ron stared at Harry. "You don't think she's going to start flying, do you?"

Harry stared back at Ron, his eyes widening in horror. Then he turned to the shopkeeper. "The strongest harness you have, please. And the long red leash."

"And that box of treats over there," said Ron. When Harry turned a disbelieving look on him, Ron said, "What? Uh, she'll like them. And it'll help us train her."

Harry said, "You have a point."

Ron added, "These treats don't drip, either."

"Right." Harry nodded to the shopkeeper, who added them to their small pile of items, which included a tough dragonhide toy.

As they left the store with their bag, Harry said, "I just wish I knew where she'd found that snake."

"And the second one last night," Ron added.

"I've never seen snakes wandering the castle," Harry said. "Nor heard them either."

Ron eyed him sideways.

"Well, except that one time," Harry admitted, "but that was different."

"If she catches another one," Ron said, "we should probably try to get it before she kills it. And then you could ask it."

Harry stared at Ron, startled. "I... didn't think of that."

Ron looked proud of himself. "Next thing y'know, I'll think of something before Hermione does."

***

Ginny walked down an alleyway near Honeydukes, then stopped and leaned against the wall.

"He was pretty determined not to tell you where he heard it," Hermione said, appearing next to her.

"I wonder if he even knows," Ginny said. "Percy drops more names than Malfoy. He's usually _happy_ to tell everyone around him exactly who deigns to talk to him at the Ministry."

"Point," Hermione said, carefully folding the cloak. "I wonder what he thought of your reaction."

"He'll take it at face value, of course," Ginny said, rubbing her eyes tiredly. "He's not very imaginative, our Percy. And he believes me all the time."

"Why?"

Ginny grinned at Hermione. "Because I'm not Fred or George. Somehow, he got it into his head that I'm just as responsible as him or Bill."

Hermione rolled her eyes. Then she looked hard down the alleyway. There were stealthy crunching sounds around the back of Honeydukes, moving slowly, getting louder. "Ginny," she whispered, "I think someone's coming this way."

Ginny looked back that way and hissed, "Hide!" She ducked behind a trash bin. When she glanced around, she saw no sign of Hermione.

A man in a hooded cloak strode into view and paused to survey the alley. After a moment, he smiled, his teeth glinting from the shadows. "Come out, come out, little girl," he said in a quiet voice that nevertheless carried.

Ginny gritted her teeth and slid her wand out of her jacket. Yet another cretin who called her "little."

He began to walk toward her, and she saw his wand in his hand. "You might as well come out," he said in a reasonable tone, "because you won't get away from me."

She glanced up and down the alley. At least he seemed to be the only one. All right, maybe this "little" thing worked for her insofar as her enemies seemed to be determined to underestimate her.

He reached her trash bin and stopped. She could hear his boots on the gravel as he shifted to look around. Then he leaned over the bin suddenly, thrusting his wand into view. She leaped to the side as the green flash of an Unforgivable blew several boxes to splinters.

She twisted and came up to her feet, spitting, " _Stupefy!_ " The man--a Death Eater, she presumed--blew end over end down the alley, stiff as a board. She realized that Hermione had cast a full body bind on him at the same moment. "Thanks," she said.

"No problem," Hermione replied, emerging from the cloak and tucking her wand away.

"Let's get back to the school," Ginny said, feeling very much _done_ with Hogsmeade suddenly.

"You read my mind."

"Think we should tell Dumbledore?"

"Think he doesn't know already?" Hermione asked, raising both eyebrows.

"Well, _someone's_ going to be alarmed," Ginny commented. "He's standing on his head with his heels propped against that ventilation pipe back there."

***

Ron and Harry were heading toward Honeydukes when Ron called out, "Oi, Hermione! Ginny! Wait up!"

Hermione appeared to be hurriedly buttoning up her jacket as they approached, and Harry thought Ginny looked oddly flustered. "What's up?" he asked.

Ginny and Hermione exchanged looks. "Nothing much," Hermione said.

"Nope," Ginny said.

"Hey, look, we just got this for the griffin!" Ron said, displaying the harness and leash proudly. "The harness has brass bits, see? So the griffin'll be all in red and gold!"

"Ah," Hermione said. "Great, Ron. That's great."

"It'll be adorable," Ginny said sincerely.

Harry eyed the two of them for a moment. "You're... sure nothing's up?"

Ginny looked at Harry. "Oh, come on. What could we possibly get up to in _Hogsmeade_?"

"We should go," Hermione said abruptly. "All of us. Now."

"What?" Ron said. "We haven't... I wanted to pick up some... Honeydukes... Zonko's..."

Hermione had given Ginny a significant look, and the two of them had taken Ron and Harry firmly by the elbows and started to lead them back to the castle.

"What's going on?" Harry said, attempting to free himself from Ginny's surprisingly powerful grasp.

"We'll discuss it back at Hogwarts," Hermione said, towing Ron along at a brisk pace.

***

It was a good thing Harry was already sitting down, Ginny thought, because given the look on his face, he really needed to be sitting down right now. He looked from Ginny to Hermione, speechless.

Ron was less so. _"Percy?"_ he said, his voice hitting registers usually reserved for cheering at Cannons games. " _Percy_ sold you out to the Death--"

"Shhh!" Ginny clapped a hand over his mouth. "Ron! Not so loud!"

Hermione opened the dorm door and peeked out. No one was there, not even a ghost. She shut it and sat down on Harry's bed again. "Ron, I don't think Percy did that. I think he was just a catspaw."

Ron nodded, the flush on his face dying down. "A catspaw. Right. That explains everything. Of course he's a catspaw. What the bloody hell is a catspaw?"

"It's when a more powerful person uses a less powerful one to do their dirty--" Hermione began.

"Like what Tom Riddle did with me," Ginny snapped.

"D'you think he was under Imperius?" asked Harry, turning pale.

Ginny looked at Hermione, who shook her head, agreeing. Ginny said, "No. I just think he's kind of stupid."

" _That_ isn't news," said Ron, flopping on his belly across the bed.

"No, but this is. Percy's 'sources' told him that Harry and I were married," Ginny said grimly.

"And of course he'd have to come and check out something like that," Ron said slowly.

Ginny glanced at Harry, who'd turned yet paler. She and Harry and Hermione spent a moment or two looking at one another before Hermione cleared her throat and said, "To state the obvious, no, the leak wasn't one of us."

Harry said, "It couldn't be Rita Skeeter, could it?"

"You would not _believe_ the number of Insect-Repelling Charms I have cast around Gryffindor," said Hermione, a touch acidly. "And something tells me that Dumbledore has done something similar."

"Besides," said Ginny, "If it were Skeeter, she wouldn't content herself with just telling someone at the Ministry..."

Harry flinched.

"Snape!" said Ron. They all turned to look at him. "Well, he knows, doesn't he? And he's a Death Eater, isn't he? So maybe _he_ told--"

Hermione opened her mouth, but Harry cut her off impatiently. "Yes, yes, Dumbledore trusts him. _McGonagall_ trusts him. How many times do we go over this, Ron? Every time something happens, you cry Snape."

"Well, he _is_ a right bastard," muttered Ron.

"Yes," shot back Harry, "but if he wanted this spell-thing to fail he wouldn't be a bastard to me about how I'm treating Ginny, now would he?" Then he turned bright red.

Ginny stared at him, then looked at Hermione, who shrugged with one shoulder, looked ceilingward, and said, "Talk about a raven in a box at the bottom of a well at midnight calling a slightly smudged copper kettle black."

Ginny snorted. After a moment, everyone was laughing.

***

Harry had not quite finished blushing over his inadvertent confession when Ginny said, "Right, now that we're all up to date, we've got to go talk to Professor McGonagall."

"What for?" asked Ron, honestly puzzled.

Hermione said, "Um, to report the Death Eater attack on Ginny?"

Harry sat up directly, feeling as though a pitcher of icewater had just been dumped over him. "Ginny, no! You can't tell her!"

Ginny leaned over and placed her palms on the bed, her long hair sweeping forward off her shoulders. "Harry. There is a Death Eater standing on his head in that alleyway. Quite apart from the fact that it's bad for his brain, he's going to be angry as hell when the Body-Bind wears off. _Someone's_ got to be informed."

"Um," Harry said. "I guess you have a point."

"But they'll keep us from going to Hogsmeade!" protested Ron. "They might cancel Hogsmeade weekends altogether!"

"Yes," said Hermione patiently. "Ron, if there are Death Eaters in Hogsmeade, it's probably not just Harry and Ginny that are in danger."

"The original attack, brother mine," Ginny said, "was designed to be on _all_ Hogwarts, if you'll recall? That means they'd really rather like to kill _everyone_ , and that's what this whole--" she paused a moment, grasping for words "-- _farce_ was supposed to _prevent_!"

Harry opened his mouth to say something and discovered that his voice had vanished. While he expected that there had _always_ been Death Eaters prowling Hogsmeade, having them attempt to kill someone in broad daylight, when the town was crowded with students, was another thing altogether. And if Percy had been told about the marriage by someone, and that someone wasn't a Weasley or a Hogwarts teacher, then that, with the appearance of the Death Eater, suggested that...

"Besides," Ginny continued, "this just... confirms my guess that You-Know-Who knows."

Hermione and Ginny were already getting up to leave the dorm. Harry stood up to follow them, thought, _Farce_ , and sat down again.

As they got to the door, Hermione looked around. "Harry? Ron? Aren't you coming?"

Ginny said, without looking around, "I think Professor McGonagall will want to talk to you too."

Harry stood back up. With all three of them looking at him, Ron finally climbed heavily to his feet. "All right," he said, "let's go get it all over with then. Goodbye, Honeydukes." He sniffled theatrically.

***  
Ginny had been dreading this moment ever since she realized that the whole story of visiting Percy would have to come out.

"Borrowed my Invisibility Cloak?" Harry hissed angrily once they got out of McGonagall's office. " _Borrowed_?"

Hermione looked like she was in pain, and Ron looked, as ever, bewildered. Ginny said in a low voice, "Look, Harry, we..."

"NO," he bellowed, " _you_ look _here_. I don't CARE what -- What?"

Ginny, irritated, latched onto his elbow and towed him along. He tried to break free of her grasp, as before, but he again failed to reckon with a girl who'd grown up with six brothers. Her fingers tightened and she hurried her step.

Up the stairs and up some more stairs and down a hallway. Hermione and Ron followed silently, and Harry kept attempting to protest. She shushed him wrathfully.

When they stood before the door, he looked up at it, then back at her. She opened the door of the Room of Requirement and dragged him in after her. Hermione shut the door after she and Ron had also passed over the threshold.

The room was small and silent, heavy with dark wooden paneling. A fire was lit in the grate, and four solid chairs, padded in Gryffindor colors, were set before it. A sideboard held a few decanters of things, tumblers, cups, and a steaming tea service.

Ginny released him in the center of the room. He stood there, looking around and rubbing his arm. " _Now_ you can shout if you like," she said, hands on hips.

Harry looked perplexed. "Why here?" he asked sullenly.

"Because," she said reasonably, "there was a group of Slytherins sliding closer. And you were starting to shout."

"Was not," he said, still rubbing his arm.

"You _were_ ," she said in repressive tones more than a little reminiscent of her mother. "So, here we are. You want to rant and scream? Do it here." She pointed to herself. "Right here. It was my idea, and there's no cause to be shooting dirty looks at Hermione."

Harry looked at her for a long moment, started to say something, then looked down at the floor. "Well," he said finally, "you _could_ have asked me."

"Oh, yes," Ginny said acidly, "in all those convenient moments of close friendship and confidential conversation we've been having. I quite forgot. Silly me."

"Yeah, well at _least_ I didn't steal something from you," he snarled.

Ron sat down in a chair and said, sotto voce to Hermione, "Is this their first fight?"

Hermione, who never looked away from Ginny and Harry, nodded and said, "Uh-huh."

"Should we, you know," Ron said, "break it up a little?"

Hermione shook her head. "No. Hush."

Ginny nodded. "Right. That's right. You didn't steal anything from me. And I should've asked your permission. I'll agree with both those things."

Harry stopped rubbing his arm, still looking at the floor. "It's all right, isn't it?" he asked after a moment.

Ginny sighed. "Yes, Harry. Like Hermione or I would let something happen to your cloak? If you think that, you're a bigger idiot than I thought."

"Right." Harry shuffled one foot against the thick pile of the carpet. "Look, everyone's been telling me I... was treating you badly."

Ginny raised an eyebrow at him. "Like Snape?"

"Yeah," he said awkwardly. "The _last_ person I would've expected to hear it from."

"Frankly the last person I would have too," she said.

"Yeah," he said again. "So I, um, I'm sorry." He looked up at her finally, cautiously.

One corner of Ginny's mouth quirked up, then she nodded. "I'm sorry about the cloak."

He nodded. "Friends?" he suggested, holding out one hand.

Ginny eyed him shrewdly, then she smiled and took his hand. "Friends. Until you start freezing me out again, Potter, and then I'll get mean."

Harry laughed, still awkward, and said, "You and the rest of Hogwarts, I think."

"All right then," Hermione said in her best parody of her own bossy manner, carrying the tea service over to a nearby table, "sit down the both of you and let's have tea. There's biscuits and everything."

The four settled into the large, surprisingly comfortable chairs with their teacups and biscuits.

Harry said, offhandedly, "So, can I have it back then?"

"What?" Ginny asked.

"The cloak."

"Oh, I should think so," she said, airily waving her teaspoon about. "But I'll have it back the _next_ time I decide to kite off to Hogsmeade to try my hand at dueling Death Eaters."

***

The griffin was assiduously peering under cabinets, chairs, and tables in the common room. The was a crowd of girls in the common room this evening, all of them seemingly much entertained by the griffin's antics. Padma, visiting her sister Parvati, was particularly enchanted, although her new pet raven was not.

Harry eyed the griffin worriedly. "She's really taken to this snake-hunting thing."

"How many snakes did you say she'd found?" Hermione asked.

"She's up to six now," Ron said morosely. "All of 'em were pretty small, and she killed them so quick Harry didn't have a chance to talk to them."

"Efficient," Hermione said.

"That she is," Seamus said on his way past. "Lovely, too. Adorable. Want to keep her for a night?"

"Or forever?" Dean intoned from across the room.

The griffin paused in her perambulations to sit up and chatter excitedly at Rolor, the raven, which was perched grumpily on the very top of the stone molding over one of the windows. It hunched its shoulders and disdained to reply.

"Ah, no thanks," Hermione said, a little too quickly.

"Alas," Seamus said, flashing what he evidently thought was his most charming grin, "but she's utterly harm-- What's she got there?" His grin froze with horror. "That's not..."

"That is," Ron said, peering past him.

Seamus bore down on the griffin, waving his hands. "No! No! Bad griffin!"

"We'll have to name her if Hagrid doesn't get back soon," Harry said, snickering. "She's going to think her name is 'Bad Griffin.'"

"What's she got?" Hermione asked, puzzled and trying to see what Seamus was wrestling away from the griffin. The griffin, for her part, had dug in and was growling like a small buzzsaw.

"His lucky underpants," Harry explained.

Seamus managed to triumph by throwing himself onto his pants and crowding the griffin off. Ron gave Seamus the thumbs-up, and explained to Hermione's perplexed frown, "He wore them for OWLs and did so well he's saving them for NEWTs."

"Really," Hermione remarked, not without amusement. "At our age one would think we'd place more faith in studying than in underwear."

Seamus retreated up the stairs with his prize, to the accompaniment of mad giggling. Meanwhile, the griffin wandered over to peek hopefully under Dennis Creevey's robe.

Parvati turned to Padma and said in a voice that carried clear across the room, "What if the griffin is just finding snakes that have been here all along? And we wouldn't have known about them but for her?"

"Eugh," Ron said. "What a thought."

***

Ginny was not so much sitting at one of the tables in the Common Room as barricading herself at one when Hermione sat down opposite her. "Mind if I take up a few square feet?"

"Not at all, especially since you did your Arithmancy OWL last year," Ginny replied, looking up hopefully. "I'm trying to study, but it's difficult with yet another Potions essay hanging over my head." She shoved aside _Unlikely Ingredients From Unlikely Places_ and _The Encyclopedia of Uncommon Materials, with Cross-References._

Hermione moved a stack of notes. "We can study together for a bit, and then I'll help you with your essay, if you like."

Ginny smiled beatifically at her rescuer. "Do you have any interest in a redheaded firstborn?"

Hermione grinned. "Not at the moment, but I'll check back in a few years."

Ginny flipped to a new chapter in her Arithmancy text and consulted her notes. She was just about to ask whether Hermione would possibly consider loaning her notes from last year (what with the firstborn thing and all) when Hermione sighed and poked her quill angrily at the parchment. "Really, what's the use of setting _word problems_ in Arithmancy? This would be so much easier if I understood poker a little better."

Ginny looked up. "You need to learn how to play poker?"

Hermione flicked a charm at an ink spot and it vanished from her homework. "Well, it would make this assignment much easier."

Ginny grinned. "This, my friend, is the grin of a poker shark. There should be a pack in the cupboard over there. It's not that difficult to learn."

Hermione wavered. "Will it take very much time? You've got that essay to do."

"Oh, it goes very quick," said Ginny, fetching the cards. "Let's start with one of the simpler variations, like Salem Stud. There's lots more complex games, like Bon Sour One Frank and Wands At The Door. But we'll start with the basics."

"The basics, huh," said Hermione challengingly, leaning on one hand and watching Ginny.

"Yep," said Ginny, tapping the deck with her wand and saying, "Shuffle." One corner of her mouth curled up.

The cards, much bent, very faded, and somewhat greasy in appearance, shuffled themselves slowly and carefully.

"Now, a lot of the strategy in poker has to do with betting," Ginny said, "but before you get to the betting strategy, you have to learn what's a winning hand. These cards are so old, they'll practically tell you." She tapped the deck and said, "Salem Stud. Deck dealer."

The deck slowly dealt out five cards to each of them. Hermione said, "Shouldn't there be chips or something?"

Ginny shook her head. "No, you never put money on the table in _wizard_ poker. It's considered extremely bad luck, ever since there was that Incident in Madrid. No one ever puts money on the table when they're playing cards. The deck keeps track for you."

"Oh," Hermione said, picking up her cards. "So why is it called 'Salem Stud'?"

"Mum learned it from some visiting witches from the Salem Institute," Ginny said, studying her cards. "They brought dragon pox over with them too, and all of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff went down with it before the teachers could quarantine everyone. Mum and her friends didn't have anything to do for _weeks_ except play cards. Which was bad, since they were playing for chocolate, and they weren't supposed to have any chocolate. It made them flame more."

Hermione giggled. "I was wondering why we have so many very _old_ fireproofing charms around the tower."

"Mum said her trunk smelled of smoke for years after," Ginny said. "Now, these are the winning hands..."

***

"Come back here, Dora!" shouted Dean, chasing after the griffin, who was romping cheerfully away with a shoe in her beak.

"...Dora?" Harry said, bewildered, having just entered the room.

Ron moved in front of the griffin, and Dean closed in behind her. The griffin, for her part, crouched over her acquisition, rear and tail high in the air, wiggling excitedly. As they both dove for her, she somehow slipped between them, leaving Dean's head to collide with Ron's chin. The pair reeled back in a daze.

Seamus watched from the safety of the bed. "She needed a name, Harry. She really needed a name."

"Why Dora?" Harry asked, watching Ron and Dean stagger to their respective beds. The griffin watched them too, from her perch atop Neville's bed.

Seamus grinned at him. "C'mon, Harry. Think about it."

Harry's brow creased with puzzlement. He felt a bit like everyone else was dancing around his idle wits, pointing and laughing. Then it hit him. "Urggggh," he said, closing his eyes tightly and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Why didn't you just wait for Hagrid to name her?"

"Oh, come _on_ , Harry," Dean said. "Hagrid would just name her... Fluffy or something."

"He's already got a Fluffy," Ron said from his position, sprawled backwards over his bed. The griffin romped across his belly, producing a number of surprising sounds from him.

"It was Neville's fault, actually," said Seamus. "He's a devil for puns."

"Neville?" Harry said incredulously, turning to look at Neville, who was engaged in trying to wrestle something--socks?--away from the overexcited griffin.

"Um?" Neville said, caught mid-wrestle and staring up at Harry innocently.

"Oh, all right," Harry said, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead. "It makes sense to name her, I suppose. We can't keep calling her 'the griffin'."

The griffin launched herself at Neville in a flurry of flapping wings and happy trills. He keeled over and landed with a thump on his back. Dora performed a triumphal dance on his chest for several moments before curling up and dropping off to sleep with astonishing speed. Neville whimpered.

"Guess you're the most comfortable," Seamus said.

"Yeah," Dean commented. "She likes sleeping on you. When she's on you, she stays out for _hours_."

"I have detention tonight," Neville said despairingly, lifting his head to peer at the snoozing griffin.

Harry regarded Ron, who seemed to be taking his horizontal opportunity for a nap. "Maybe we can... I dunno, shift her over to Ron without waking her."

"What's the cushiest bit of Ron?" Seamus said, studying their roommate critically.

"He's pretty bony all over," Dean said.

"Try his head," Neville groaned.

"Hey," Ron objected. "I'm not asleep."

"You look it," Harry said. "Besides, you're the next best thing to Neville right now."

"You're squishier than I am," Ron said, shooting a look at Harry.

"Really?" Seamus said curiously, rising from his seat to peer at Harry more closely. "I suppose I hadn't really noticed, Harry, but he's right. You've got a bit round about the middle."

"Have not!" Harry said, looking down at himself.

Dean nodded sadly. "The Gryffindor Seeker's gone all soft."

Harry was indignant. "I'm just as fit as ever!"

Ron sat up and stretched. "Oh, come on, Harry, give it up. You already said your trousers were tight, just a few weeks ago in the locker room."

Harry's mouth opened and closed. "I'm a _teenager_. Teenagers grow!"

"All directions, it seems," Seamus said, clicking his tongue and drifting toward the door. "Well, I'm for dinner. Anyone else?"

"Harry shouldn't have anything more to eat than a stick of celery," Dean said, following.

"Yeah," Ron said. "Mum'll feed him till he bursts at hols anyway. You have to slim down, mate, or Malfoy'll beat you to the Snitch in the next game."

Harry was last out, staring at his roommates, appalled. "I can't not eat! I'm starving!"

"Yeah, yeah," Seamus said, "that's what they all say."

"You should have a chat with the girls sometime," Dean said. "They've got a lot of good diets."

Seamus shot a grin over his shoulder at Harry. "That's all right, it looks good on you, mate. No need to reduce."

Harry was about to answer when he heard Neville's distant voice saying, "Fellows? Hello? Dinner? Detention? Hello?"

***

At the scream, Ginny was out of bed, on her feet, wand in hand. She looked around wildly for the source of the noise, but it had cut off sharply at her appearance.

"Um," Prudence said, staring wide-eyed down the length of Ginny's lit wand. Letty, equally large-eyed, was standing just behind her.

"Oh, sorry," Ginny said, casually lowering the wand and internally cursing her brother-born reflexes. "What's wrong?"

"There's a _snake_ in here!" Letty wailed. "I saw it when I went to put on my slippers."

"Where'd it go?" Ginny asked.

Marian Fairlie, a quiet, practical girl that Ginny quite liked, pointed at Letty's nightstand. "It just slipped behind there. It's not very big."

Ginny dove for the floor just in time to glimpse a small snake moving off under Evelina's bed. " _Petrificus totalus_!" she barked, then pulled the paralyzed snake out.

All the other girls had seemingly Apparated to the other side of the room. Ginny raised an eyebrow at them, but said, "I'll just go take care of this, shall I?" She held her wand in her teeth and grabbed her dressing gown as she left the room.

Where to go? She stuck her head into the bathroom. No signs of any other girls. She slid in and, around a corner, released the full-body bind on the snake.

 _Thank you_ , it said. _That was rather uncomfortable._

"Sorry," she replied. "I was afraid they'd hurt you. What're you doing here anyway?"

 _I was told to look around,_ the snake said, regarding her stolidly.

"By whom?" Ginny asked.

 _Some fellow_ , the snake replied. _Then there was the business with the box, and the horrible joggling journey, and I'm_ still _rather ill from that. I'd really just like to find someplace warm right about now._

"Well," she said, "you're not a biting sort of snake, are you?"

 _No_ , said the snake, sounding offended. _Constrictor, that's me._

Ginny approximated its length at about a foot and a half. She wasn't too worried. "I'll see if I can't find you someplace warm and safe. Meanwhile, er, would you like to curl up in my sleeve?"

 _Oh, how delightful!_ the snake exclaimed as she offered it her sleeve. It slithered in and wound itself around her upper arm, where she was the warmest. An odd sensation, but certainly not unpleasant.

Ginny let the snake settle in while she considered what to do next. It took her all of ten seconds before she was treading softly up the stairs to Hermione's room.

***

Harry was dreaming that someone was serving him a platter of dancing sausages when the mashed potatoes began to whisper his name urgently. Somehow, this dragged him up to consciousness, and he discovered that the potatoes were, in fact, Hermione. Or, at least, the voice was hers.

"Huh?" he said intelligently, mind racing and wondering where his fork-tipped wand had gone.

"Get up," Hermione said from the door. "I need to talk to you."

"Right," he whispered, managing to locate his glasses and staggering into the stairwell. "What?"

"Ginny caught a snake," she said.

" _Ginny_?" he said, confusedly thinking that the griffin's name had been changed.

"Yes," Hermione said. "She put it in a body-bind and brought it to me."

"Well," he said, part of his mind observing dryly that he was obviously not as awake as he thought he was.

"Come talk to it?"

"Oh," he said. "Right. Sure. Let me grab..."

"Your dressing gown?" Ron said, emerging from the door, holding the garment out to him.

Harry peered at Ron. "What're you doing up?"

Ron grinned lopsidedly and yawned. "My Harry's-up-to-something alarm went off. Almost as good as Mum's clock."

***

After deciding against the boys' bathroom ("Neville always has to pee in the middle of the night") and the girls' bathroom ("I'm not going in _there_!" "You had no trouble with Myrtle's bathroom!" "Myrtle's bathroom didn't have _girls_ in it!" "He's just scared of scented shampoo. It's the twins' fault, don't ask."), Harry went back and fetched the Invisibility Cloak, and they sneaked out to the Room of Requirement.

"It's kind of tame now," said Ginny as they snuck along the corridor. "All we have to worry about is Filch."

"Er," said Harry, "and any other professors who..."

"... stalk the night fantastic?" said Hermione.

"I was going to say, have insomnia," said Harry, sounding a little bewildered.

"Ow," muttered Ron. "Quit stepping on my foot, Gin."

"I wouldn't step on it if it weren't bigger than the squid."

"Are you saying there's something wrong with my extremities?" demanded Ron.

"Well, you have got big hands and feet," said Ginny.

"It means you're going to be tall," interrupted Harry placatingly. "Now be quiet! I can't see the map properly under here and you wouldn't want Mrs. Norris finding us."

"It's the door," Hermione said, popping out from under the cloak to open it with an air of relief.

Ron muttered to himself, "Nothing wrong with my hands and feet."

The Room of Requirement was decorated much the same as before, with the addition of two large, well-appointed snake tanks. The four of them crowded through the door and hurriedly shut it behind them.

"Whew," said Ron, throwing himself into the chair closest to the fire. "I like you all, but not so much that I'd do that every night."

Harry folded up the Invisibility Cloak and sat down, looking expectantly at Hermione and Ginny. "So?"

Ginny flashed a grin at Hermione and... reached a hand into the fold of her robe and drew the little snake out of her well-covered bosom. "He didn't look like the biting type, just a little garter snake," she explained, "so..." She stopped when she saw the expressions on Harry and Ron's faces. "What?"

Ron said, wide-eyed, "Better you than me, Gin."

Harry had turned a brilliant scarlet color. Hermione was making dignified snorting noises and had turned her face slightly away from the boys.

"Look," Ginny snapped, "snakes like warmth, right? It was perfectly logical." She thrust the snake, which was now wrapped companionably around her wrist, at Harry. "Talk," she commanded.

Harry unfortunately just turned redder and seemed to have nothing at all to say to the snake, which raised its head and gave him a mildly interested gaze from little black eyes.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," muttered Ginny. "Afraid it's going to tell you my bra size?"

Harry's mouth opened and shut like a fish. Now it was Ron's turn to start snorting. He didn't manage to be dignified about it.

Ron's amusement snapped Harry out of his trance of embarrassment. "Don't _you_ start," he said to Ron. Then he cleared his throat and focused on the snake.

Ginny could tell from Ron and Hermione's wide-eyed expressions that all they heard was incoherent hissing, but she understood every word.

"Um, hello," said Harry.

 _Hello_ , said the snake lazily.

"Er, I was wondering if you could tell us how you got here? In the castle?"

There was a moment of consideration, and then the snake said, _A ruddy cramped box._

"Who put you in the box?"

 _Some fellow. Biggish, coldish, less smelly than the rest of you mammals. Several of us got stuck in together._

Harry turned pale. "This... person. Could he talk to you?"

 _Well, yes. Odd accent. More a viper person, I should say._

Harry blinked at this revelation. "What... did he say to you?"

The snake swayed back and forth gently, flickering its tongue out at Harry. _To have a look around. Told us there were plenty of mice here. Doesn't do_ me _much good, I say. Do I look like I could eat a mouse? Good thing I found the kitchens._

"What _have_ you been eating?" asked Harry, distracted.

The snake gave him what Ginny could only interpret as a jaded look. _Bugs and such. Down in the kitchens, like I said._

Ginny ruminated queasily on that for a moment, wishing he hadn't asked. She suspected Harry regretted asking as well.

"Ah," said Harry, who slowly reached out. The snake twined itself around his fingers. "If you're supposed to look around," he began, "isn't he planning to talk to you again? Are you supposed to go and meet him somewhere?"

 _You know_ , said the snake, _that's a funny thing. I wondered that, but he never said a word about how we were to meet up with him again. Bit barmy, if you ask me._

"Well," said Harry finally, "if you don't mind staying in this tank for a bit, it's well-heated, and seems to be full of... crickets."

 _Oh, today's my lucky, lucky day_ , enthused the snake. _Nothing's tastier than a bit of cricket. Would you like to share a snack?_

"Um, not just at the moment, thanks," said Harry politely, letting the snake down into the tank.

" _Well?_ " said Hermione, her patience at an end.

"There's good news... no, there's just bad news," said Harry.

***

"So," Ron said, mouth full of scrambled egg, "if they're coming in a box, d'you suppose they're coming by post?"

"Ugh, Ron, what a thought," said Ginny. "And very clever of you too." She reached for some toast.

"Seems a bit bold," said Hermione, "just to send a box full of snakes to somebody by owl."

"Seems to me the question is, who's getting them?" said Harry, a little woozily. He hadn't slept properly after the night's adventures, and had had uncomfortably vivid dreams about trying to find a snake he knew was hiding in his bed. Normally this would have very little effect on him, but for some reason today, he was having trouble waking up.

Ron opened his mouth, and both Hermione and Ginny said, "No, Ron. It's not Snape."

"But it _could_ be him!" said Ron. "I mean --"

"I think the other professors would notice if he suddenly started getting a lot of mail. I mean, seriously, Ron, have you ever seen him get anything more than a newspaper?" Hermione inquired.

"Owls," said Ginny shortly, and all conversation stopped as everyone peered upward, looking for large boxes.

The flurry of wings and messages and parcels descended all at once upon the room. Letters dropped in front of Ginny and Ron, a heavyish package in front of Hermione, and a few other things fell for their fellow Gryffindors.

All four of them, however, had their eyes on the great eagle owl that swooped down upon the Slytherin table and the deposit of the daily large package in front of Draco Malfoy.

"Why didn't we think of it sooner?" said Harry. "You said it yourself, Hermione. Who's bolder than Malfoy, even _if_ his father is locked up in Azkaban?"

"He gets one every day," Ron said. "Has for years."

"It would be so easy to slip some snakes into the sweets," said Hermione, unwrapping her package of Honeydukes chocolate. "Too bad they're not poisonous."

"This at least explains _why_ they're not poisonous," muttered Ginny.

"Mmm," said Harry to his plate. "He'd just bite them back."

Hermione pushed three-quarters of her latest acquisition over to Ginny. The pair exchanged sheepish grins.

"What's all that for?" said Ron. "It's not Ginny's birthday."

"Payment," said Hermione, blushing unaccountably. "For tutoring."

Harry looked back and forth between them. "Shouldn't it be the other way, then?" he asked.

"Shows what _you_ know, Potter," said Ginny in satisfied tones.

***

"So," said Ginny, tapping the deck to start it shuffling again, "what do we do now?"

Hermione paged lazily through Ginny's latest Potions essay resource, _Lead to Gold: Where Potion Laboratories Meet Transfigurational Studies_. "Other than me losing all my Honeydukes acquisitions to you? I don't know."

"Well, we felt pretty sure that Malfoy is the source of the snakes," Ginny said, picking up her cards. "Do we... follow him? Confront him? Break into Slytherin and search his trunk?"

Hermione picked up her own cards. "I really don't know. As a Prefect, he has a lot of opportunity to let the snakes out in unusual places. If we could find where that's happening, maybe we'd get more proof."

Ginny put down three cards and tapped the deck. The deck, for its part, slowly and sloppily dealt out four cards, as if too tired to care. One card flipped over, revealing the Jack of Hearts. "Oh, _bother_ ," Ginny snarled, and shoved the four cards back into a random spot in the deck, ignoring the cries of protest from the elderly Jack. She snatched three cards off the top.

"Oh, Ginny, don't get impatient," Hermione said with a sigh. "You _know_ it'll stop behaving if you do. Just like--" the deck riffled itself irritably in Ginny's face, cards flying all around her "--last time." Hermione bit her lip in a way that suggested very powerfully that she was trying not to laugh.

Ginny spat out a card that had managed to get into her mouth. "Dusty antiques," she snapped.

The door opened and footsteps tromped in behind Ginny. "What's up?" Harry asked.

Hermione leaned across the table and removed a card from Ginny's collar. "We're playing poker," she explained. "Ginny's teaching me."

Harry looked back and forth between them, eyebrows raised. "I... see. It looks a bit like the time I tried to teach Dudley to play Go Fish."

"Looks more like a broken deck t'me," Ron said. "Deal us in if I find another deck? We've got something to tell you about."

"Sure," Ginny said, gathering the cards together roughly and dropping them on the table. "You sort yourselves together or I'm burning the lot of you," she informed the cards. Grumbling, they began to assemble into a neat deck again.

Ron returned with another deck of cards, hardly less ancient, but at least more inclined to behave.

Ginny looked at the pack and said, "Hermione, I've been wanting to teach you a more complicated game, but it's not designed for two players. We have four players now." She tapped the deck and said, "Wands at the Door. Deck dealer."

"Wooo," Ron said. "Not pulling punches, are you, Gin? You're letting _her_ teach you to play cards, Hermione?"

"Yes," Hermione said, raising her eyebrows.

Ron shook his head. "She's a sharp, she is. Learned from Mum."

"Best person to learn from then, don't you think?" Hermione asked with dignity.

The deck dealt out the cards a little more briskly than the last pack and added a single card, face-down, on the table. Ginny pointed to it and said to Hermione, "That's the dragon's egg. If you don't like your hand, you place it face up in the center of the table, and take that card instead. You draw other cards to bring your hand up to par next round. And your cards become fairy gold and people can trade their cards for yours. If no one takes the dragon's egg this round, it hatches into the dragon and becomes wild."

"Got it," said Hermione. "I assume each round is a betting round?"

"Yep," said Ron. "We betting with beans?"

"Ante is five beans. Beans until we raise to chocolate," said Ginny. "So what's this thing you wanted to talk about?"

"We've been thinking about it," Harry said, scanning his cards. "We have an idea."

"Don't keep us in suspense," Hermione said.

"We're going to take the griffin out," Ron said in a low voice, "and look for where Malfoy's letting the snakes out. There's bound to be something he's left behind there, right?"

"And we need proof," Harry said.

Ginny stared at them over the cards. "You're just going to go out and... wander the halls, hoping to find the snakes?"

Hermione added, "With the griffin."

"Yeah!" Ron said enthusiastically. "Brilliant, isn't it?"

The girls exchanged a look. Then Hermione said, "I raise. A bar of Honeydukes."

Ron stared at her, then his cards. "I fold."

Harry peered at his cards, then pushed them together and laid them face-down. "Me too."

"Harry," Ginny said, appealing to the one she thought might be more reasonable, "you can't just walk the halls with the _griffin_. I call."

"Sure we can," he replied, startled.

"Harry," Hermione hissed. " _Filch_." She looked at Ginny. "I raise another bar."

"Hermione," Harry whispered. "Invisibility Cloak."

"You can't be serious," Ginny said. "The griffin won't stay behind the cloak. I fold too."

Hermione laid out her cards. A single pair of queens graced her hand.

Ginny grinned. "You're learning to bluff! It warms my heart." She shoved the cards together and said, "Shuffle and deal."

"We'll think of something," Ron said defensively, as he examined his cards.

"It'll work," Harry said. "We'll go out later tonight." And he traded his hand for the dragon's egg.

***

Harry reflected that Ginny was right, and Ron's feet were, perhaps, trying to become as large as the squid. However, he thought, Ron's _shoes_ were certainly soled with Hagrid's rock cakes, cleats, and perhaps a sliver or two of broken glass.

"Can you try not to shift around so much?" Harry asked.

"I can't help that," Ron said. "Your back is all edges and lumps, and I can barely keep my balance."

"It's only that the footstool is starting to wobble," Harry said plaintively. "Which means the chair may go over any time. Can you reach her yet?"

"Almost," Ron said, stretching as high as he could, almost going up on tiptoe, which Harry was dreading as much as he'd dread a poke in the eye.

The griffin, for her part, was eagerly watching the precarious process, paws curled around the edge of the topmost trim of the window in the common room. When Ron's outstretched fingers brushed close, she sat up, tucking her wings in fastidiously, and watched him miss his grab for her with intense interest.

"Potter! Weasley! What have you got there?"

The sharp voice was the one that Harry had been dreading ever since they first got Dora. He didn't have a lot of room to be startled, being firmly on hands and knees on top of a footstool, which was jammed into a chair they'd wedged against the windowsill. Ron, on the other hand, had a number of options for movement, all bad.

When, eventually, Harry looked up--through glasses knocked askew--at the doorway, Professor McGonagall had her eyes closed with an expression of infinite patience. Ron groaned from somewhere nearby. Inevitably, a final item tumbled off the nearby shelf and clattered to the floor.

The griffin mewed, prancing excitedly at the edge of the window trim.

McGonagall looked at Harry and Ron's miraculously unbroken bodies, and shook her head in apparent disbelief. She produced her wand, pointed it at the griffin, and snapped, " _Accio_ griffin!"

The griffin, with a startled squawk, flew across the room into McGonagall's hands (flying, Harry noted, with far less grace than the short flight that had taken her up to the topmost recesses of the common room).

Ron groaned again. "Why didn't _we_ think of that?"

"I don't know, Weasley," McGonagall said, gathering the griffin into her arms and reducing the beast to a limp, purring mass with a few scratches. "It _is_ a basic spell you learned quite some time ago. Perhaps we'd all best go to my office to discuss this." And with the confiscated griffin continuing to make motor noises, the professor turned and left the common room.

"Bloody he--" Ron began to say as he tried to get up. The footstool rolled out from under him abruptly, though, and he thwacked his head against the leg of the chair. "Ow."

***

"Then McGonagall said we could keep her," Harry said, "as long as we gave her to Hagrid as soon as he came back."

Ron added, "She's going to get too big to keep in the dorms, she said."

Harry said, thoughtfully, "But she really liked Dora's name. I'm going to have to tell Neville."

The griffin thought the cloak was a great idea. Fortunately, it took a very short time for everyone else to realize that the cloak was, in fact, a very _bad_ idea indeed. Harry rescued it before it had more than a few punctures near the hem.

"We're doomed," Ron moaned.

"Keep your eyes on that map," Harry said, apparently short on patience.

The griffin squawked happily -- and loudly -- and twisted round in her harness to nibble on her leash. She regarded the leash as another new and interesting toy. Thus far it had proved ineffective in getting her to go in any one direction.

Ginny bonked her head gently against the nearest suit of armor in a fit of despair.

Ron said, "Mrs. Norris is two corridors down. I don't see Filch, though."

Hermione said something under her breath that Ginny was _quite_ sure was _not_ exactly polite.

"You know," Harry said suddenly, turning to Ginny. "Maybe you ought to stay behind."

Ginny stared at him, startled beyond words for a moment. Then she said, "Oh, no, you're not pulling this now."

"No, really, I think you ought to stay behind, Ginny," he said seriously. "No point all of us getting detention if something happens."

"Why not leave Ron behind, then?" she said fiercely. "And Hermione? After all, if they're caught, they might lose their badges."

"We're allowed to be out here," Ron said, as reasonably as possible. "And Harry is... well, Harry. I think he's right. You should go back."

"Look," Hermione said, "there's no point getting into this now. She's here, and she runs as much risk going back as she does going along."

Harry shot Hermione a look Ginny couldn't read, but turned back to attempting to control the griffin. Ron shrugged.

Ginny fumed.

Only the griffin was cheerful about this adventure, and she cavorted along, sniffing here, poking her beak in there. The four humans were briefly cheered by her discovery of another small snake.

"See?" Ron said. "We're on the right track."

"Get it away from her!" Ginny exclaimed, making a grab for the griffin.

"It's too late," Harry said. "She's really quick."

Ginny had already heard the tiny half-exclamation as the snake died--probably what had told Harry that they were too late--and bit down on a vicious curse. Hermione glanced aside at her worriedly, but Ginny just glowered into the darkness ahead.

"Oh, hell," Ron whispered.

"What?" Harry demanded in a low voice.

" _There's_ Filch," Ron said, pointing to a name that was moving toward them at a startling clip.

Ginny looked around. "Quick," she said, "get into that alcove. The cloak can cover us all there."

"What about Dora?" Ron asked.

Harry was wrestling with the cloak, having handed the leash to Hermione. Hermione, for her part, sighed, shook her head, and touched the griffin with her wand (Dora spun around, trying to catch the wand in her beak), quietly pronouncing, " _Circumduco_."

"The Avoidance charm!" Harry whispered. "Good thought!"

"Best chance we have," Hermione said with a shrug.

They all packed into the alcove hurriedly and draped the cloak in front of themselves. The griffin sat down outside the alcove, suddenly bored with everything, especially since her people had gone and vanished on her.

Ginny and Hermione watched the map over Ron's shoulder as Filch got closer and closer. Harry, in front of all three, whispered a few last sticking charms to keep the cloak in place.

"Remember," Ginny whispered, "no matter what the griffin does, _stay quiet_."

"Right," whispered Ron.

"Right."

"Right."

The griffin twisted her head around to examine the harness on her back. She made a grab for it, overbalanced, and fell on her side with a little squeak. Convinced that the harness was the cause of all her troubles, she continued to try to grab it, paddling herself around in little circles on the stone floor.

Harry started to shake with suppressed laughter. Ron snorted. Hermione hissed, "Close your eyes if you can't stand it!"

Ginny couldn't help it. She giggled. Hermione clamped a hand over her mouth.

Footsteps approached from down the corridor.

Ginny wondered why, in situations like this, you always seem to notice that something is tickling your nose. She thought it might be Hermione's hair.

The griffin, pleased that a new playmate was approaching, leaped to her feet and bounced up to Filch, who totally ignored her. Hermione's eyes closed in relief.

Dora, disappointed, pounced on Filch's foot and attempted to nibble on his shoe.

Ron exhaled something that was probably originally a swear word.

Filch absently shook his foot and continued marching down the corridor.

Dora hit the end of her leash and, abandoning her attempts to engage Filch, she tottered over, intent on grooming some ferocious itch on her belly. The footsteps died away.

There was a long, long pause after Filch left via the stairs at the end of the corridor. Then Harry drew in a long, whooping breath and burst out laughing. Slightly hysterically, but still laughing, he staggered out from behind the cloak. Ron followed him, and scooped up the griffin kitten, giggling.

Ginny, buzzing with relief, turned to Hermione and opened her mouth to congratulate her on her use of the Avoidance charm. An awkward moment ensued as she realized it's very difficult to congratulate somebody when you are literally nose-to-nose with them: apparently, Hermione had turned toward Ginny at the same moment. They hesitated there, surprised.

"Hey! Dora's found another snake!" Harry said from a little way down the hall.

Ginny hastily fled the alcove, asking, "Still alive?"

Hermione emerged a moment later, removing the sticking charms and folding the cloak over her arm.

***

"Nothing!" Harry said grumpily. "All that marching about in the middle of the night. Filch could have caught us, we'd have detentions until the ends of our lives..."

"I'm glad you finally noticed that," said Hermione, setting Fang's dish down and patting the big dog while he dove into it.

"And nothing!" Harry exclaimed, ignoring her comment, marching around Hagrid's hut, waving his arms. "I think there are more snakes in Gryffindor than there are out in the corridors!"

"Is that really a surprise?" Hermione asked, catching a mug that Harry knocked off the table. "It _is_ warmer in there."

Harry collapsed onto a chair. "Do you really think the snakes are coming from Voldemort?"

Hermione poured hot water from one of Hagrid's many tea kettles into the mug she saved and another, distantly related one, on the table. "You're the one that spoke to the snake, Harry," she said. "But from what you said, it certainly _sounds_ like it."

Harry stared into the mug in front of him, watching the tea leaves swirling around inside. "Do you think Ginny's right, and he knows about the... the wedding?"

Hermione sat down and leaned her chin on her hand, watching him across the table. "I think she has good reasons to believe it."

"She never said what those were." He turned the cup absently.

"You could ask her," she said. "She _is_ your wife, after all."

Harry rubbed his ring finger with his thumb, feeling the weighty curve of the ring. "It's still so odd. It's been months now, and... well, I don't feel any different than I did before it happened." He remembered the variety of people who had spoken to him over the course of the past month, and he hunched his shoulders. "Well, I suppose I feel more yelled at."

Hermione smiled a little, sympathetically. "Other than that, it hasn't been that bad, has it?"

Harry stared down at the table. "I keep having bad dreams about it," he confessed.

"I'm sorry," said Hermione.

"And I dreamed about Sirius getting married."

He sensed Hermione's attention focus. "You dreamed about Sirius?"

"Yeah," he said, suddenly feeling very tired. "And... and Cedric. I wish I'd got to talk to them."

"You couldn't, in the dream?"

"Dumbledore wouldn't let me."

"Harry, I _think_ this dream is kind of important." Hermione leaned forward over her tea. "Don't you think it might mean that you're getting... things from You-- Voldemort, again?"

"Voldemort wasn't in it," Harry said with weary patience.

"Maybe he was dreaming the same thing," said Hermione.

"That's stupid," said Harry. "Why would _he_ dream about Sirius? And Cedric?"

"He killed Cedric, or his wand did," Hermione said slowly. "And one of his Death Eaters killed Sirius. He kills a lot of people, but those are the ones you saw, and I think maybe he's... some part of him is frightened by that. After all, he hasn't killed you yet, and you might try to avenge them. I think he's very frightened of death. Look at how hard he's tried not to die."

"It still doesn't make any sense," said Harry, feeling more frightened than he wanted to let on. "What about all that stuff about 'let the dead marry the dead'?"

Hermione's eyes widened. "Harry," she breathed, "didn't you recognize that?"

Harry shook his head blankly.

"It's a quote," she said. "Or nearly. 'Let the dead bury the dead.' It's in the Bible, I think."

Harry swallowed dryly. "What does it mean?"

"I'm not sure," Hermione said. "But I think we know how he found out."

***

Now that Dora had semi-official sanction, they were taking turns exercising her outdoors. Ginny had hold of her leash as the kitten leaped and swam through the season's first snow.

"She seems to like it -- mmphhh!" Ginny said as the griffin's energetic digging kicked a fountain of snow into her face.

Hermione laughed. "So much for cats not liking water."

Dora flapped energetically and flew along a short arc into a snowbank. Ginny hung onto the leash with both hands. Snow flew everywhere.

Hermione cleared the snow out of her eyes. "I swear, she has more energy every day."

"Merlin! What _is_ that? A kneazle crossed with a pigeon?" Malfoy swaggered along the path.

"None of your business, Malfoy," said Hermione shortly.

"Couldn't you afford a _bigger_ one?" He strolled in a circle, apparently examining the griffin, who was pouncing on pine cones. "That's Gryffindor all over. Substandard everything."

"What are you doing out without _your_ pets?" asked Ginny, hoping to distract him.

He ignored her and continued to sneer. "I thought you're supposed to be all... lion-y. There's no lion in that mongrel. What are you going to use it for? To hunt mice?"

"Actually," said Ginny sweetly, "she's getting quite a reputation as a snake hunter."

Malfoy glared at Ginny. "One mongrel defending another. I'm not surprised, since you come from such a degenerate family yourself. How on earth can you _stand_ being a _Weasley_? Is it something you were trained to do, like sleeping six to a bed?" He turned and strolled away.

Wordlessly, unable to speak for rage, Ginny shoved the leash into Hermione's hand and went after him.

***

On hearing that Dora was out taking the air, Harry and Ron decided to go out themselves and play with her.

"I bet she likes the snow!" said Ron.

"Ron," said Harry, "she's a kitten, she likes everything."

"But she's a _lynx_ kitten," Ron pointed out. "Got to use those huge paws for something other than running over my face in the middle of the night."

They emerged from the castle just in time to see Malfoy approaching Ginny and Hermione.

"Oh, bugger," said Ron. Harry just hurried. By the time they reached the little scene, Hermione was standing there, helplessly holding the griffin's leash, watching Ginny march through the snow after Malfoy.

"Oh, good!" she said, and thrust the leash into Ron's hand. She ran after Ginny.

"Wha-?" said Ron. "Hey! Wait!"

Dora exploded out of her latest snow-burrow, flapping wings full of snow everywhere and chirruping excitedly. Harry spat out a mouthful of snow and tried to pick snow out from behind his glasses. Ron staggered backwards and fell over, much to the griffin's delight. To Ron's dismay, however, every enthusiastic bounce that Dora made drove him deeper into the snow. "Dora!" he shouted. "I'm trying to get up! Get off!"

"Sorry," said Harry briefly, favoring Ron with a sympathetic smile before hurrying after Hermione.

Hermione, Ginny, and Malfoy were standing next to the greenhouses.

"By dose! By dose!" Malfoy yelped, clutching his hands over his face.

"What did you go and do that for?" Ginny demanded.

Hermione stared at Ginny. "He just called you... I mean... I suppose I shouldn't have, but--"

"I can take care of myself!" Ginny shouted.

"My dose idz bleedig!" Malfoy stared, aghast, at a small red stain on his fingers.

"Um... I... I...I know you can," Hermione said, desperately groping for words. "I just... reacted, I guess."

"Well, you didn't have to!" Ginny was surprisingly red in the face.

"I'm... sorry?" Hermione offered.

"I'm bleedig to death here!" Malfoy insisted, waving his bloody fingers about. "Why are you apologizig to _her_?"

"Oh, _do_ shut up," said Hermione distractedly.

"Don't tell me to shud up, you filthy little--," Malfoy snarled.

Ginny turned in a surprisingly graceful move and swung her arm from the shoulder in a way she never learned on the Quidditch pitch. Malfoy staggered backwards, missed his step, and fell down hard against the side of the greenhouse. Snow showered down.

Ron arrived just in time to see Malfoy fall down. Dora pranced happily on the end of her leash. Harry and Ron exchanged a look.

Ginny turned to Hermione. "See?" she said triumphantly, then marched off.

"Oh. Yes," said Hermione thoughtfully. Then she lifted her chin and strode firmly off in another direction.

"I'b dyig," Malfoy moaned. "I can't see out ub one eye."

"Barking mad," Ron said wonderingly. " _Both_ of them."

"Yeah," agreed Harry.

"Blood," agreed Malfoy.

Harry wandered over, pulled a clean handkerchief from his trousers pocket, and tossed it onto Malfoy's chest.


	6. All's Fair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which All is Revealed, courtesy of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.

"Why," asked Snape, "is his head so... big?"

In the aftermath of the interrupted duel, the corridor was a shambles. Ginny took advantage of the momentary lull to cast the counterspell for jelly-legs on herself. Just beyond her feet, the stone of the corridor had turned into burping sludge and Pansy Parkinson was stuck in it up to her waist. Hermione, whose hair was presently a mass of writhing squid tentacles, had got off a particularly good spell that Ginny didn't know the name of; one of the other Slytherins was enmeshed in the sticky, gooey webs, and Nott, who had brushed up against it, was as firmly stuck. Too bad it hadn't been his wand hand. All in all, she thought, they hadn't done too badly for themselves, even though Ron had a horn growing from his tongue. And, of course, there was Neville.

"I... think it was an engorgement charm," Hermione said, after it became clear that no one else would reply. "But I didn't see."

Snape gazed once around the corridor before looking back down at Neville. "Positively gargantuan," he muttered. "Take him to Madam Pomfrey. And twenty points from Gryffindor for dueling in the corridors." With a wave of his wand, he dispelled several of the hexes on the Slytherins and then marched away, sweeping his students along in his wake.

Ginny joined Hermione in looking down at Neville in dismay. "Maybe the two of us can lift him," she said.

"I'll help," said Harry.

"Maaummhhphh mllll," said Ron.

"Right," Hermione said, eyeing Ron's... addition. "Madam Pomfrey should have a look at you too."

"Harry?" said Ginny, as they walked along, one on each side of Neville's head. "How do you manage to come through all of these duels unscathed?"

"Um," said Harry. "Quick reflexes?"

Hermione said sourly, as she brushed a tentacle out of her face, "I'm sure it will all balance out in the end."

"Uh, thanks, Hermione," said Harry. "I think."

***

"Well, _that_ went badly," Harry grumbled, throwing himself down on his bed.

"Twenty points for dueling," Ron complained. "He didn't even take any points from Slytherin for it."

"He _never_ takes points from Slytherin," Harry said, flipping over to lie on his back. "You're talking better, at least."

"Madame Pomfrey said it was an easy one to fix," Ron said with a grin. "Not like Neville's head."

Harry sighed. "Poor Nevi---OOF!"

The griffin had taken to playing "Death From Above" with the denizens of the Gryffindor sixth year boys dorm. She would conceal herself among the draperies and then pounce down upon her unsuspecting prey. Harry had to admit that she was quite good at it, and he thought she would eventually be a magnificent huntress. However, his scalp, shoulders, and, now, stomach, were suffering for her art.

Ron said, "We should take her out tonight. Now that the Slytherins aren't likely to let anything slip."

Harry coughed and inhaled, which was rather a project with Dora continuing to dance merrily on his belly. "Yeah. I _wish_ Ginny hadn't gone off on Malfoy like that. Now he's put all of them on alert, and they're just going to be problems."

"That's Ginny," Ron said sagely. "Never thinks things through, and has an _awful_ temper. You should _never_ have married her, Harry."

Harry launched a sock directly into Ron's laughing face, and he cheered when Dora decided it was a game of fetch and ended up scrambling over Ron's head.

***

"I feel," said Ginny mournfully, "like an utter prat."

Hermione looked at her over the top of the book she was consulting. "Why is that?"

"Well, if I hadn't gone off on Malfoy like that, he wouldn't suspect anything," Ginny said, leaning her chin on her fist. "He denied everything anyway. And now the Slytherins are all twitchy."

"What did you expect to do? Walk up to them and ask, 'Right, so, which one of you is setting snakes loose in Gryffindor then?'" Hermione demanded. She shoved irritably at one tendril of hair that kept creeping into her eyes--it apparently had problems forgetting to be tentacular.

"Noooo," Ginny said. "But maybe... I dunno... I just feel like I messed it up, you know?"

"Look," said Hermione reasonably, "it's true that you probably shouldn't have gone off on him. And that I shouldn't have hit him. And... well, anyway, I don't think it changed anything. We still suspect some of the Slytherins, and it _could_ involve Malfoy. But isn't it nicer to think that it doesn't and that there's something he's left out in the cold on?"

Ginny grinned slowly. "You're right, that's rather nice to think of, actually."

"And even if they're more careful now," Hermione went on, "Harry and Ron are still very enthusiastic about Dora. We'll find them soon enough."

"You're right again," Ginny admitted.

"So, there," Hermione said, shoving her hair out of her face and picking up her book again, "you've got no reason to feel bad. Unless you really do regret the cold Malfoy's got now after getting soaked in the snow?"

Ginny laughed. "No," she said, "no regrets there."

***

"I think that box was one of 'em," Ron was saying as he and Harry entered the Common Room.

"You're probably right," Harry said, taking the leash off Dora. The griffin squeaked and danced off to investigate the other inhabitants of the room. "It sure looked like it was packed for snakes."

"Found something?" Hermione asked, she and Ginny looking up from their cards.

Harry grinned. "Dora led us right to a box down this side passage." He glanced around the mostly empty room, and pulled out his map. He unfolded it once and pointed.

"There's a box down there," Ron said. "We couldn't bring it away, though. Mrs. Norris showed up."

"You said it looked like it was packed for snakes?" Ginny asked, peering at the map.

"Yeah," Harry said. "Harder stuff, like cardboard, making spaces for snakes to hide or move around in, and softer stuff to pad it. It was all scattered about."

"So it looks like we were right," Hermione said, dealing Harry and Ron into the game.

"Now we just have to find out who's getting the boxes," Ron said cheerfully, examining his cards.

"No handy address label?" Ginny asked.

Harry scowled at his cards. "No such luck," he said.

"Aw, it's just a matter of time now, Harry," Ron said. "Especially since we know where they're letting the snakes out."

"Easy to say," said Harry. "How long did it take us to find it in the first place?"

Ron rolled his eyes and shrugged.

Ginny burst out laughing. Harry looked at her quizzically, and imagined that Ron and Hermione were doing likewise.

"Sorry," Ginny said, stifling herself and dropping her voice. "It's just... oh, Ron, I don't know why they didn't marry _you_ to Harry instead of me."

Harry glanced over at Ron, who was bright red and refusing to look at Harry. Hermione raised both eyebrows. "Uh," Harry said. "They thought about it."

"No surprise really," Ginny said. "You two are already like a married couple."

"The Wizarding world lets... two people of the same sex get married?" Hermione asked, a little startled.

"Oh, yeah," Ginny said lightly, trading part of her hand for new cards. "I think we've always done it. Don't Muggles?"

Hermione gave Harry another raised-eyebrows look. "Uh, no, actually," Harry said.

"They do it in Sweden," Hermione pointed out.

Ron laughed, somewhat awkwardly. "It's like, you know, arranged marriages," he explained.

"Yeah," Ginny added. "It's for when families want to, you know, foster alliances and such. And they've only got a son each, or a daughter each. So they marry them to each other." She laid out her cards. "It's not like something unnatural or anything."

Harry watched Hermione's face freeze, and wondered about that as the cards shuffled themselves back together.

"I've got some homework I want to do," Hermione said after a moment, gathering her books together. "I'm going to go up to my dorm. See you all in the morning."

***

"Hello, _Weasel_ ," Ginny heard behind her. She turned and found herself face-to-face with Pansy Parkinson. Behind Parkinson stood Millicent Bulstrode and three or four Slytherin girls in Ginny's year.

Ginny raised an eyebrow. "Won't you lose points for talking to a Gryffindor, Parkinson?"

"I'm just fostering house cooperation," Parkinson said innocently.

Bulstrode and Ginny snorted almost simultaneously, which led to a brief interlude of staring at each other with somewhat outraged expressions.

Parkinson took advantage of the pause. "It's been noticed that you're spending a great deal of time with Potter's little group," she said, continuing the game of innocence.

Ginny shrugged. "My brother _is_ his best friend, after all." The invisible ring felt heavy on her finger suddenly.

Parkinson eyed the ceiling with clearly feigned disinterest. "It's been _suggested_ that perhaps there's something going on between you and Potter."

Ginny laughed outright in Parkinson's face, which startled the other girl so much that she backed up a step, right into Bulstrode. Bulstrode bore it with a certain immovable quality of tolerance, reaching out to steady Parkinson. Then Ginny said, "Something between me and Harry Potter? You're pretty funny, Parkinson. And late to the game. The Gryffindor girls asked me the same thing almost a month ago."

Parkinson tossed her head and scowled. "No need to be so _rude_. I was just being _interested_ in the goings-on in other houses, little Weasel."

"Aren't you just a nosyparkerson?" Ginny said with grim humor. "Your little rumors couldn't be further from the truth."

Ginny could clearly see that wit was lost on Pansy as the Slytherin went somewhat blotchy with anger. "Maybe Draco is right," she hissed. "Maybe all you Weasleys sleep in the same bed, and you're just missing your precious brother."

There was a sneeze, followed by a miserable drippy sniffle, nearby. "Is someone using my name in vain?" Malfoy inquired from around the corner.

Pansy turned away from Ginny and hurried to Malfoy. "Oh, Draco, I just had the most dreadfully unfortunate meeting with one of those... Weasleys."

Ginny and Bulstrode traded stiff nods before passing each other in the hall. The other Slytherin girls slunk along in Bulstrode's wake. Ginny could have sworn she heard Bulstrode whisper, "Nosyparkerson," under her breath as she walked by. But she decided she must have imagined it.

***

The griffin crouched behind a small heap of snow, rear end wiggling madly. Harry watched her with distracted fondness until she pounced out to the end of the leash and nearly yanked him off his feet.

"Harry," Hermione said hesitantly as he attempted to right himself and keep hold of the eager griffin.

"Um?" he said, reeling Dora in from her pursuit of a squirrel.

"There's a book I think you ought to read," she said, gazing off toward the castle.

"Hermione, it's almost the end of term," he said plaintively. "I barely have time for homework, much less another book."

"I know," she said. "But it's about marriage in the Wizarding world. I just... thought there were some important things in it."

"I know far too much about marriage in the Wizarding world," Harry intoned.

"It's not like it is in the Muggle world," she insisted.

"I've noticed! In the Muggle world, no one would have made me get married at sixteen!" Harry shouted.

"Harry," said Hermione in the perfectly dead voice that meant she was getting angry. "Don't shout at me. In fact, don't shout. People aren't supposed to know about that, remember?"

"Look, I just don't want to think about it," he said. "Ow! Watch it now!" Dora scaled him deftly and stood on his head, looking about.

"I suppose you think if you _don't_ think about it, it will all go away," Hermione said scornfully.

"Don't worry," Harry replied, standing very still so as to avoid a clawed foot in the eye, "I know you and everyone else won't let it."

"Oh, _blast_ you, Harry Potter," Hermione snarled. "I thought you had actually grown up a bit. Sorry to see I was wrong."

"What?" he said, slightly bewildered by her irritation and helpless to walk off as he'd like.

"Look," she said between gritted teeth, "the Wizarding world is _generations_ behind the Muggle world."

"Hermione," said Harry, "Is this going to be another discussion about Azkaban? Because I don't want to talk about that right--"

"No, not the justice system. _Marriage._ "

"But... but they've got..." Harry mentally urged Dora to move. The griffin sat down, her tail dangling into his face.

Hermione waved his reminder away. "That doesn't matter. It's all part of the arranged marriages. And did you know that arranged marriages are _still_ going on? I don't just mean _yours_. I mean, they were the accepted standard in your grandparents' generation. And your parents' generation, particularly for Pureblooded families, was mostly still supposed to marry who they were told to."

"My parents fell in love. People keep _telling_ me about it," he replied glumly.

"Yes, but do you think for one moment that Lucius Malfoy _didn't_ have an arranged marriage? Marriages like your parents and the Weasleys were still considered sort of... lower-class, or odd, or something back then. And Draco's probably going to have to marry someone he's told to. In fact, his parents may have picked her out already."

Harry thought about this. "I hope she's really awful."

"Harry, _that is not the point!_ "

Dora, startled by Hermione's outburst, leaped up and then had to scrabble for balance, her wings flailing the air. A brush of feathers knocked his glasses into the snow.

"Ow! Ow ow ow! Dora, quit it!" Harry looked down and squinted at the snow, hoping to find his glasses. His shift in position made Dora dance more wildly. "Settle down, you daft catbird!"

 _"You settle down,"_ Hermione told him. "And listen, for once! If your parents were alive, Harry, and important, and everyone seems to think the Potters were an old Pureblood family and they _certainly_ left you lots of money although there doesn't seem to be an estate..."

Harry bent over further as the snow was too far away. Dora strolled down his back as he peered at the trampled snow-shadows. How could his glasses just vanish like that? Just before he was going to straighten back up, he felt Dora lie down on the small of his back and make herself comfortable. He groaned inwardly.

"...And _if_ it was really important to mend relations after the war, and it might be, you might be made to marry Draco to foster an alliance between the Potters, Malfoys, and Blacks."

Harry choked. "I can't! I'm married to Ginny!" He discovered that it was difficult to panic properly with a griffin kitten perched on one's back. Dora prickled him warningly through his robes.

"Were you _listening_ at all? I was talking about a what-if! And anyway, you ARE married and the war isn't over and they loathe you so it's not going to happen. But that kind of thing happens _all the time_ in the Wizarding world."

"What, two men getting married?"

Hermione sighed meaningfully. "No, Harry. Well, it happens, but that's not the point. It's just a coincidence that both you and Draco are only children so it would have to be the two of you if your families decided to make an alliance. For that matter, it could just as easily be you and Neville! No, what I meant was--"

"Neville!" said Harry, standing upright involuntarily. Dora was launched from his back with an indignant squawk, and glided to a messy landing nearby. "Thanks for _that_ image!"

Hermione covered her face with one hand. "Harry. Potter. Please. Listen."

"I'm trying but you're not making any sense!"

Hermione stared at him for a moment-- or so he thought; her face was a blur-- and then levitated his glasses out of the snow with a brief flick of her wand. "Here. _One_ of the things I was trying to say was that arranged marriages were the norm until your parents' generation, and _they are still very common._ Did you get that?"

"Yeah," he said sullenly, putting his wet glasses on his nose.

"The Weasleys do not have an arranged marriage, you may have noticed. Like your parents."

"Well, yeah," he said. "Anyone can tell they're really fond of one another and all."

"Arranged marriage is a _class_ thing, Harry. The Weasleys don't give a dragon's sneeze about it, because they're just... well, just wonderful people. Not at all like the Malfoys."

" _Nothing_ like the Malfoys," Harry said wholeheartedly.

Hermione gave him a pitying look. "Harry. Given that I'm pretty sure they hoped for _all_ their children to have love-marriages, why do you think they let Ginny marry you?"

Harry stared at Hermione in shock. He suddenly became aware of the cold snow seeping through his shoes and the griffin's leash tangled around his ankles.

"Oh, no," he said.

***

Hermione dragged into the common room late enough that Ginny had just finished her most recent Potions essay.

"You look..." Ginny began.

"Dead?" Hermione dropped into the chair next to Ginny and draped herself for dramatic effect.

Ginny was more than a little startled to realize that, while she had been thinking that Hermione looked tired, seeing Hermione draped dramatically changed that image to something rather more attractive. She kept her face as blank as possible.

Hermione sighed. "We just broke up a duel between a Hufflepuff and a Ravenclaw down by the greenhouses. At least two-thirds of the second year was there to cheer for one side or the other, _including_ a raft of Gryffindors."

"You're kidding," Ginny said, eyebrows high. Some part of her sighed with relief at the distraction.

"Ernie heard about it through the grapevine and asked a few other prefects for help, since it sounded likely to be a crowd." Hermione frowned briefly. "Ernie kept asking me if I could get Harry to help too. He seemed disappointed when I said I didn't think it was appropriate, since Harry isn't a prefect."

"How'd it go?" Ginny signed her essay with a flourish, blotted it, and began to roll the parchment.

"Only two full-body binds and an Expelliarmus or three," Hermione said with a faint smile. "I'm now a monster, since I took a full complement of points from Gryffindor."

"Well," Ginny said, "you've certainly had a full night of it."

"Yes." Hermione stared at the fire for a moment, then said, "Do you fancy a game of cards before bed? I really _am_ too wound up to sleep."

"Oh!" Ginny said. "Sure! And I found a fresh pack in my trunk -- Mum must've put it in -- so we don't have to play with those creaky old things." She gestured in disgust at the set of shelves that held the common room games.

Hermione pushed herself out of the chair and glanced around at the other late-study students poring over their books or parchment. "Come on up to my dorm, then. It'll be empty."

Ginny arrived a few minutes later, deck of cards in hand, and the pair retired behind the Imperturbable bed drapes on Hermione's bed. "Right," Ginny said, pulling the deck out of its plain cardboard box and setting it on the bed. "What game?"

"How about Spit in the Cauldron?" Hermione asked. She tapped the deck with her wand and said, "Shuffle, please."

"You've been reading up," Ginny said accusingly. Hermione contrived to look innocent as the cards neatly shuffled themselves. "Well, then, you're in for a nasty surprise," Ginny added, settling herself, tailor-style, on the foot of the bed.

"Perhaps _you'll_ be the one surprised," Hermione said lightly and picked up her cards.

"So," Ginny said, dropping two cards face-down and tapping the deck twice, "are we going to have to seriously consider Ron's Snape suggestion?"

"I doubt it." Hermione dropped four cards. "I was trying to watch the Slytherins during the... discussion that led to the scuffle the other day. I think a couple of them may have guilty consciences."

Ginny wagered, "A bar of Honeydukes," and Hermione winced. "Poker-face, Granger," Ginny commanded, "you were doing better than this before."

Hermione said, "I call," then added, "I'll do better, Teacher."

Ginny won the hand. She grinned up at Hermione. Then blinked. "Um. When did you take off your tie?"

Hermione's hand flew to her throat, then she looked around. There it was, folded neatly next to her. She turned wide eyes to Ginny, saying, "I don't remember doing that."

Ginny's stomach hit the floor. "Oh, _damn_ ," she said. "I'm going to _kill_ them." She turned the deck over and there, on the bottom of the pile, was the Queen of Spades, reclining on a couch and wearing little besides a pair of patent-leather boots and a large black pointy hat. "Damn, damn, _damn."_

"What?" Hermione began to look alarmed as Ginny started sorting through the deck.

"Arrrrrgh," Ginny said, with feeling, as she pulled up the Ace of Spades. "Look. 'Wizard Poker Disrobing Deck courtesy of Weasley Wizard Wheezes.' I'm going to hex them both so hard they'll be pulling bats out of their..."

"Oh, it's all right," Hermione said hastily. "I'll run down to the common room and get another deck."

"That might be a baaaad idea," drawled the Queen of Spades.

They both peered down at her. The Queen shifted on her chaise lounge and said, "There are _consequences_ if you quit early, ladies."

"Consequences," repeated Ginny. "What sort of consequences?"

"Do you _like_ having a _random_ article of clothing removed to a _random_ location within a 50 yard radius at _random_ intervals for the next two days?" the Queen asked lazily.

Ginny uttered another incoherent noise of rage.

Hermione swept the deck together and set it face-down on the bed. "Shuffle and deal," she ordered, then met Ginny's gaze steadily.

Ginny let out the breath she'd been holding. "I suppose it's better than the alternative."

Hermione picked up her cards. "Definitely. And I can only thank whatever powers kept us from having this game with Ron and Harry."

***

"So," said Harry, buttering his toast, "I heard there was a duel last night." As he crammed the toast into his mouth, Hermione and Ginny traded glances. Ginny looked away quickly and Hermione smiled. "A duel in the forest behind the school?" he amplified, mouth still half-full.

Hermione took a calm sip of pumpkin juice. "It was behind the greenhouses, not in the forest. You should know better than to listen to rumors, Harry." Then she said, "The prefects broke it up."

Ginny was staring at her muffin fixedly. Harry thought that girls were weird about sweets, but a muffin was a good idea anyway, and took one for himself. "Anything interesting happen?" he inquired.

Ginny sprayed muffin crumbs as she giggled unexpectedly. Harry gave her a sideways look.

"Not really. We had to take some points. Ernie asked after you." Hermione ate a forkful of eggs.

"He did? What for?" Harry was honestly puzzled. He put a whole slice of bacon in his mouth and gave Hermione an inquisitive look.

"Oh, I think he just thought you might be--"

"Nice to have around," said Ginny, controlling her giggles with a big swallow of juice.

"I was going to say useful," Hermione said, with a reproachful glance at Ginny that slid off into a dimpled half-smile. Ginny turned slightly pink and it was Hermione's turn to look down at a plateful of porridge with a repressed snort of laughter.

Harry was beginning to feel left out. "What's so funny?" he asked.

The tips of Hermione's ears turned red. Ginny said, a little hastily, "Ernie."

"What's so funny about Ernie?" Harry asked, honestly bewildered.

"Harry, if you don't know, it's not my place to tell you," Ginny replied mischievously.

***

"Are you sure you weren't trying to throw the game at all?" Hermione asked suspiciously as they climbed the stairs to the Owlery.

"Me? Why would I do a thing like that?" Ginny said innocently, sealing the scroll to her mother.

"Misplaced chivalry?" Hermione said.

"If I were being chivalrous," Ginny said reasonably, "would I have started laughing that time you won and the cards announced, 'Two pairs'?"

"Of course you would have," Hermione said, opening the door at the top of the stairs. "I've never heard a supposedly nonsentient object be so lascivious in my entire... Oh, hello, Cho."

Ginny came up short at the sight of the Ravenclaw. Cho Chang, for her part, looked startled. "Hello, Hermione," she said. "How are you doing?"

"Not badly," Hermione said, stepping to one side. "How's studying for NEWTs?"

"Everyone's pretty tense already," Cho admitted. "It's going to be a long year."

"Not long enough, I bet," Hermione said. "That's the way I felt for OWLs, at least." She shot a Significant Look at Ginny, who rolled her eyes skyward.

"Oh, hi, Ginny," Cho said, a little distantly. "Haven't seen much of you lately."

"Well, since I'm not Seeker anymore," Ginny said, stepping past Cho into the Owlery, "I suppose you don't have any reason to see me."

"Yeah," Cho said thoughtfully. She turned back to Hermione. "How's Harry these days?"

Hermione glanced at Ginny, who shrugged and went to choose an owl. "Oh, he's fine. He's Harry, you know?"

"I'm sorry I don't get to see _him_ more," Cho said, starting down the stairs. "All the girls in Ravenclaw have been talking about how good he's looking these days."

"Ah," Hermione said blankly, and waved after Cho.

Ginny finished attaching her scroll to the owl's leg while she fumed. Hermione closed the door of the Owlery and shook her head.

Ginny snorted. "At least _she_ didn't ask me if something was going on between Harry and me. Why don't they ever ask _you_ that, Hermione?"

Hermione shrugged. "I suppose I'm old news."

***

Harry stuck his head into the stairwell. The tell-tale whistling of "Weasley Is Our King" told him that Ron was just stepping into the Common Room. Harry trotted down the stairs to ask him about the Charms assignment.

Just as he was about to step around the corner into the Common Room himself, though, he heard Ginny's voice nearby, lowered but agitated, and he stopped curiously.

"Whistling that dratted song again," she was saying.

There was a pause, then Hermione said, "What's wrong?"

"Oh, it's just..." Ginny sighed. "I mean, I'm proud of him for managing to snap out of his bad-keeper funk, but... _I_ bloody well won that game, catching the Snitch under Cho Chang's nose, _on a bloody cheap, ancient broom._ Not a Firebolt, or even a new Cleansweep. And who got carried off on everyone's shoulders?"

Harry rested his head against the stone. He hadn't even thought of that. He'd been so proud of Ron, and glad that he'd got the cheers he deserved after all his hard work.

"Oh, forget I said anything, Hermione," Ginny said after a moment. "I'm just... tired. I'm just... tired of being invisible." There was a pause. "Seriously, forget that. I really was glad for Ron, you know. I'm going up to bed."

Harry waited until he heard her footsteps walking away before he rounded the corner. Hermione was looking after Ginny, frowning.

***

Ginny said, "Sorry, you need to budge up a bit," as she set the new snake down in the glass tank. "Now behave, all of you."

There was a general hissing of dismay and irritation from the half dozen already itinerant snakes.

"Would you prefer I left you out as griffin food?" she asked sweetly.

The snakey dissension settled down. One small voice exclaimed _Skeereeee monsterrrr!_

She hunted in a nearby cupboard and found a box of crickets. After a moment's deliberation, she set the box down in the tank and opened the lid. Crickets of all sizes began to leap out, and she hurriedly clamped the tank lid down and moved over to the second tank.

"All well here?" she asked of the three larger snakes, who were all sleepy with meals from the day before.

 _Yes_ one replied, while the others drowsed.

"Remembered anything of the person who handled you?" she inquired as she checked their water.

 _Very warm hands_ the snake said. It considered a moment longer. _Smelled of food._

Ginny frowned. Food, to this snake, suggested someone with... a rat for a pet? She tried to remember any Slytherins with rats. While she couldn't recall any specifically, she suspected that the actual number was rather large. And as for warm hands... that wasn't something she generally wanted to go around checking.

"Thanks," she said, and closed the lid.

She drifted aimlessly around the Room of Requirement, seeing what the room thought she needed on this trip. Some items were constants when she came to check on the snakes: the snake tanks, the food cupboards, and jugs of water. Usually, there was a nice fire in the grate, a comfortable chair, and tea. Sometimes, there was a trashy wizard romance novel on the little table beside the chair, just the thing to take her mind off everything in her life for a short while.

When she came in to see the snakes, it often took her a while to stop speculating about who was working for Voldemort, grilling the snakes for every last detail of information, and how this whole thing with the snakes was designed to sabotage the protection they had set up with this marriage.

She threw herself into the cushioned chair with her usual disgust with their lack of information. Harry, Ron, and Hermione kept taking the griffin out to hunt the corridors, but they hadn't found another box, and the griffin made sure that they couldn't question their finds. Ginny had taken to snake-hunting just in the girls' dorm, keeping her finds in a box secured in her trunk until she could bring them to the Room of Requirement.

Her inquiries hadn't been rewarded, unfortunately, except with tiny pieces of information that didn't fit together in any reasonable way. And she wondered what the devil she was going to do with all these snakes.

With a sigh, she snatched up the book beside her and opened it. After a while she slowly closed it and peered at the cover.

Not the usual sort of romance novel.

Huh.

A little trepidatiously, she opened the book again and started reading, wondering just what it was the room thought she required in this book. But, well, she supposed it might be interesting.

***

Harry unslung his broom just outside the Quidditch pitch. "Up," he told it. The Firebolt sprang from the ground eagerly. Ron did the same with his broom.

Harry muttered, "I wish that Smith hadn't been hanging about."

"Why?" asked Ron. "He just wanted to ask you about the DA again. You know he likes to pester you about that."

Harry sat down on his broom and grumped, "He just really gets up my nose. I always feel like he's trying to catch me doing something bad. Like Malfoy."

"He's not as bad as Malfoy," Ron protested. "I mean, he was in the DA while Malfoy was working for that... that _woman."_

Harry didn't need reminding. "I know. But you know what? I prefer talking to Malfoy. He's right up front about hating us. Smith just gives me the creeps."

"This is too deep for me, mate," Ron said. "Though I don't like him much either."

"Why don't _you_ like him?" asked Harry.

"Cause he's always watching you," said Ron. "And he's sneaky."

Harry slapped his forehead, then wondered if he was picking that habit up from Hermione.

***

"Ginny," Harry said to her suddenly, quite late at night as she sat alone in the common room with her latest Potions essay, "I need to... Can I... Would you please help me with something?"

She blinked up at him blearily, trying to shift her mental broomstick abruptly from its target at the academic hoops to chasing the Snitch of Harry's train of thought. "Um. Sure?"

He plopped down on the chair next to her, and she noticed in passing that he was in his pyjamas and dressing gown. His hair was more rumpled than usual -- apparently, he was coping with end-of-term insomnia. Or something. He stared down at where his hands rested on his knees for a long moment, then said, "I'd like to get something for the holidays... for your parents."

Ginny focused a bit more. "Okaaaay," she said slowly.

He looked up at her. "I'd like to get them something really _nice_. And things for Ron, and the twins."

She nodded, but felt that he was trying to drive at something that she wasn't quite getting. After a moment of trying to fathom his expression, she raised her eyebrows and cocked her head interrogatively.

"Because I _can_ now," he blurted.

They stared at each other. Then realization dawned on her. "Ohhhhhh," she said.

" _Yes_ ," he said with tones of triumph. "So. I need your help."

"On two conditions," she said.

He swallowed hard. "Um. Okay."

"One," she said severely. "That you do nothing stupid in the pursuit of these things, like sneak out to Hogsmeade."

He nodded, looking chastened.

"Two," she said, "the 'From' labels say that the gifts are from the both of us. Because you know that's the only way this sort of thing can come. From the two of us."

He blinked at her owlishly, then smiled. "Done."

***

Harry was grateful for the warning when Colin yelled, "Owls!" down the table. It helped him dodge the enormous set of packages that Hedwig and company nearly deposited on his head. He had the sinking feeling that she wouldn't soon forgive him for the griffin's friendly overtures of the day before.

"We'll never spot the snake boxes now," Hermione said as she peered around the room. " _Everyone's_ ordering gifts by owl."

"That's a lot of packages, Harry," Ron commented innocently.

"You better just be patient, Ron," Harry said, awkwardly gathering up his packages. "No hunting under my bed."

"Better tell the griffin that," Ron grinned, picking up his books.

"Can I give you a hand?" Ginny asked, hefting a couple of boxes. Harry shot her a grateful look and tried not to drop the box he was _sure_ contained the pretty floral teapot for Mrs. Weasley.

"Of course," Hermione said thoughtfully as they emerged from the Great Hall, "if we notice _more_ snakes now, it's evidence that they're taking advantage of the situation. So, obviously, we could assume that they're getting inside information. You know, that they'd know Hogsmeade weekends were canceled and such."

"Uh, yeah," Harry said. "Look, I'll catch you all up. I have to drop these off in the tower."

"Don't be late," Hermione said as she and Ron headed off down the hall.

Ginny helped him carry the mess up to his room, a slightly quizzical expression on her face. Once there, she asked, "So, who's the broom for?"

Harry sighed. He didn't know why he bothered hoping that either of the girls would miss the least little detail of his life. "Well, since the secret's out, it's for _you_ ," he said with a touch of asperity.

"Oh!" Ginny turned beet-red. "I didn't... didn't think..."

"It's all right," he said, thrusting the package into her hands. "It's not like I could hope that no one would _recognize_ it. I mean, brooms are pretty obvious, aren't they?"

"Yeah," she admitted, staring down at the package.

"Well?" he said after a moment.

She shot him a sheepish grin and tore the paper off. After a long moment of staring, she said, very sincerely, "It's lovely, Harry." She ran her hand over the polished wood.

"I wanted to get you a Firebolt, or a Nimbus," he said apologetically. "But Hermione said I shouldn't. So I got you a Cleansweep like Ron's."

Ginny looked briefly disappointed, but nodded. "She's perfectly right, too. This is just right." She hesitated for a moment, then leaned over and kissed Harry on the cheek. "Thank you."

Harry felt himself blush fiercely. "That's all right," he said, trying not to feel _too_ pleased with himself. "C'mon, help me stash these under the bed, and then we'd best get to class. I can't give Snape another reason to take points."

Ginny groaned. "Don't get _me_ started on Snape," she said.

"Is he still being a bastard to you?" Harry asked, shooing the inquisitive griffin away from the stack of packages.

"Well, I'm trying to be philosophical about it," Ginny said, helping him shove the boxes into a more secure position. "I'll know a _lot_ about Potions when I'm done. It'll take a lot to make me do badly on the Potions OWL, won't it?"

"True," Harry admitted, trying hard not to remember his own OWL for Potions.

There was a rending sound, and paper showered down around them. The griffin stood in the center of her kill: the paper from Ginny's broom. Harry groaned.

"Go on," Ginny said, giving him a shove. "You get to Potions. I've got Binns this morning, and you know he _never_ notices if you're late."

Harry picked up his books and grinned at her. "You're too good to me, Mrs. Potter." He failed to dodge the pillow that shot into his face in reply.

"Get out, Mr. Potter," Ginny said, "before you have to go to Potions with bats trying to eat your face."

Harry fled, snickering.

***

In the common room, after dinner, Harry appeared, carrying two boxes. The boxes didn't look familiar to Ginny, so she drifted over from her conversation with Dean and Seamus.

"What have you got there?" Ron asked, sitting up from staring forlornly at his Defense Against the Dark Arts reading.

Harry opened the larger box and pulled out a... compact, shiny white-and-metal thing.

"What is _that_?" Ginny asked, leaning closer.

"It's, um, for your dad," Harry said. "It's an ice shaver."

"What d'you need to shave ice for?" Ron asked, bewildered. "It doesn't have a beard."

"No, no," Harry said. "It turns ice cubes into little shavings."

"Sort of like artificial snow," Hermione explained, wandering over from helping Colin with his Arithmancy.

Harry pulled clear bags off the various pieces of it, carefully assembling the little parts. Ginny stared, fascinated. "Why make a thing to make artificial snow?" she wondered.

"It's a... sort of a... food thing," Harry said.

"Dad'll love it," Ron said, holding up one of the dangling bits. "It's got a plug. What's it made of?"

"Plastic," Harry said.

"He'll love it," Ron said, nodding.

"You put the shavings in a cup," Hermione explained. "And then you can spray a bit of flavoring on it, like fruit juice." She plucked a small rack of four tubes, each a different color, out of the box. "Looks like it comes with, um, cherry, grape, orange, and... well, I guess green could be lime."

"What'll Dad do with it?" Ginny asked. "The Burrow's got no electricity."

"Well," said Harry, "that's what this--" holding up the second box "--will hopefully fix. It's a kit to convert electricity-run things to run on magic."

The three of them looked skeptical. "Where'd you find the kit?" Ron asked.

"In a catalog," Harry said, a little defensively.

" _Which_ catalog?" Ginny pressed.

Harry looked flustered. "'Arney's Activities' if you _must_ know."

"Arney's?" Ron asked, confused. "I only know of B.L. Arney's..."

Ginny gripped the bridge of her nose tightly between thumb and forefinger. "Argh."

Hermione looked curious. Harry looked confused.

"It's a... not very... it's a bit dodgy, Harry," Ron said kindly.

"It all looked very legitimate," Harry said, more than a little defensive now. He opened the box and pulled out a copy of the catalog. "There are even quotes about them on the back of the catalog."

Ginny peered over Ron's shoulder and read aloud, "'Buy Arney's! Definitely a winning bet!'"

Ron added, "From Ludo Bagman."

Ginny pointed. "Look! A picture of Gilderoy Lockhart!"

Ron squinted. "He keeps getting lost in those pictures of talking mirrors. And shouting at them."

Harry pulled out a brass box with copper endcaps and a folded piece of paper with tiny writing on it. "Look here. It even comes with directions."

Hermione took the directions while Harry produced several coiled wires with plugs on them from the box. Harry started trying to fit plugs into some of the holes, but they all fit, more or less. Ron started to help him, a little half-heartedly.

Ginny peered over Hermione's shoulder. "That's not proper English," she said after a moment.

Hermione started to laugh and covered her face with one hand.

"What? What?" Ginny, Ron, and Harry all clamored.

"Well, it's pretty badly translated, whatever its original language," Hermione said. "I think I can safely say that the original directions involve plugging things into holes."

Ginny managed to stifle her explosion of laughter. Harry's ears turned pink, and he said, ill-temperedly, "Is it at all more specific? Like _which_ holes? Wire colors? Anything?"

"The red wire," Hermione said, squinting at the tiny text, "seems to plug into the transformer pack near the imprint of a Greek omega." She leaned over to peer at the thing in his hand. "There, I think," she said, pointing.

Harry shoved the plug on one end of the red wire into the hole. A bit of the copper endcap bent as he did so.

"Now, you'll have to open up the machine," Hermione said.

A good quarter of an hour later, the innards of the shaver lay exposed, and the plastic cover was not broken, but several of Harry's knuckles were skinned. More Gryffindors had drifted over to observe the odd proceedings.

"I think the power supply is where the power cord comes in," Harry said after examining it. "It'd be easier if it was more like a computer. I saw the inside of Dudley's computers all the time when he threw tantrums and broke them."

"I think you're right," Hermione said, having surrendered the directions to Ginny and Ron and turned to helping Harry more directly. A tendril of hair drifted into her face and she shoved it irritably aside. "I'm not seeing any place to plug this thing in. We may have to splice the wires together."

They all stared at her. She looked around. "What? My mother had to do it when she replaced a light switch one time. I read her the directions. I think I remember how to do it."

There was an intense ten minutes of scraping and twisting and whatnot. Harry and Hermione sat back and grinned at each other triumphantly.

"All right then," Harry said. "Let's see if this thing works."

He flipped the "on" switch.

There was nothing for a moment. Then, slowly, the gears started to make noise.

And then the brass box exploded, spraying orange goo over them all.

Harry stared at the box, then sniffed his sleeve. "Orange marmalade... transforms magic into electricity?"

Hermione leaned her head on her hand. "For a few seconds, apparently." She stood up abruptly. " _I_ am going down to the library to find a _book_ , written in _English_ that tells us how to do this _properly_." She marched toward the painting.

"Um, Hermione?" Harry said.

"What?" she replied, turning back toward them.

"You still have marmalade on your nose."

She rolled her eyes, mopped her nose off, and marched out.

***

"Catch it before it eats the griffin!" Ron yelled.

Harry watched despairingly as the ice shaver made its way speedily across the room toward the distracted griffin. Ginny pounced after the machine, and managed to wrap an arm around it, but it kept moving, dragging her along.

Neville managed to snatch the griffin out of harm's way just before the ice shaver descended upon the fluffy tail, but Dora repaid his devotion with a sudden unveiling of five pointy ends and an ear-splitting squawk of dismay.

Harry threw himself after the machine and Ginny. Together, they managed to flip it over, and Hermione finally landed the cancellation spell on it.

"Right, then," Hermione said, sitting back down. "No more dozens of tiny feet."

Harry picked the thing up gingerly. "I didn't like the way it was following me around."

"It was happy until you yelled at Dora," Ginny pointed out, standing up. "Then it was off with the kid gloves. Er, boots."

"What about this bit here?" Ron said, pointing at a spot on the page of the book Hermione was scanning.

"Oh, I think you're right, Ron," Hermione said. "That looks like our spell."

Harry set the ice shaver back on the table, right side-up. "You're sure this time?" he asked dubiously.

Hermione didn't deign to give him an answer. She simply performed the spell, reading the incantation out of the book and carefully following the wand pattern.

When she was done, the machine glittered a little, and then hummed to life.

They all traded looks, and the surrounding Gryffindors murmured appreciatively, closing in now that all looked relatively safe.

"Now to test," Harry said. "Ginny?"

Ginny slowly reached into the bucket of ice, withdrew a single cube, and dropped it into the hole on top of the machine.

There was a thoughtful pause. Then the ice shaver made a sound surprisingly like a growl, rocked back and forth violently, and the ice cube shot back out of the hole.

THWOCK.

Harry was on his feet, staring down at the felled Dean Thomas. Ginny ran over. "Dean? Dean?" she said.

"Ginny," Dean said weakly, "most girls give a chap the talk about being friends. Or write a note."

Ginny burst out laughing and patted his shoulder. "You've got a goose-egg coming up. Let me fix that."

Harry, relieved, turned back to the offending device. Hermione was scowling fiercely at it. Ron nudged him. "She's not going to let us quit until she kills everyone in the room with the beastly thing."

Harry laughed, although he was a little dismayed by the hysterical edge in his voice. He shook his head. "Face it, Ron. Your dad will get his present over the bodies of House Gryffindor."

***

Even though the dungbombs went off outside the door, at the Fat Lady's feet (or where her feet _would_ be), the Common Room filled with the stench pretty quickly. Ginny wished that her brothers had not improved the dungbomb technology so _very_ much.

In the confusion, while Hermione was stopping one of the fifth year Prefects from actually opening the door to pursue the offenders ("Can you imagine what it's like _out there_ right now?"), some of the first and second years threw open every window. Ginny yelled, "Dora?" to try to be heard over the tumult, and then watched helplessly as the griffin slipped out one of the windows.

"Damn! Hermione!" she called, wading through retching third years to grab the prefect's shoulder. "Dora's got out."

"Oh, damn," Hermione said, "and it's almost dark too."

"I'll get my broom," Ginny said, rolling her eyes.

A few minutes later, they were riding double on Ginny's new broom in the twilight.

"Do you see her?" Ginny asked, feeling a little desperate.

"I've got my eyes closed," Hermione admitted.

"I can't steer _and_ look for her!" Ginny replied, exasperated.

"Steer! Steer!" Hermione said, and began to apply herself to looking for Dora.

"You'd think she'd be easier to spot," Ginny said after a few minutes.

"There she is!" Hermione said, pointing. "She's heading for the Forest!"

"Hang on!" Ginny said, leaning forward and urging as much speed out of her heavily laden broom as she could. Hermione squeaked and clung to her waist.

"Ginny," Hermione said after a particularly sharp turn, "we're not chasing the Snitch here!"

"Good thing, too," Ginny offered, over her shoulder. "With two of us, we couldn't hope to catch it. Oh, hang on!"

"I say," Hermione said weakly after a moment, "that was rather neat."

"She doesn't corner as well as the Snitch either," Ginny observed as the griffin, cut off from the Forest, swerved back toward the castle.

"Neither do we," Hermione sighed.

"She's enjoying this," Ginny said, angling after Dora.

"Of course she is," Hermione said, a little bitterly.

"Well, she's still got the harness on," Ginny said, trying to get a little altitude. "I can make a grab for that."

"I thought you said we weren't chasing the Snitch," Hermione moaned.

"No, _you_ said that," Ginny observed reasonably. "How else do you propose we catch her?"

"I could try the Enmeshing spell," Hermione said, trying to worm her wand out of her robe without letting her grip on Ginny relax too much. "The one I used against the Slytherins."

"She might get hurt if she falls," Ginny said a little dubiously.

"We could try to get her to fly lower," Hermione said hopefully.

"That might work," Ginny admitted. "Hold on!" she ordered, taking the broom into a steep dive after the griffin.

Dora squawked when she happened to glance back and see them stooping toward her. She went into an abrupt descent herself.

"Good!" Hermione said, voice unsteady and unconvincing. "That's great! She's getting lower!"

"I think she's almost as low as she's going to get," Ginny shouted over the roar of the wind, laid almost flat against the broomstick.

"I think you're right!" Hermione shouted back, and cast the spell.

"You got her!" Ginny crowed as the griffin struggled briefly, then drifted toward the snowy field.

"Pull up! Pull up!" Hermione shrieked in Ginny's ear.

"I am!" Ginny replied, pulling with all her might. "We're too heavy! Brace yourse--!"

PAMF.

Ginny opened her eyes to... snow. She tried to lift her head, but just as she did, Hermione pushed against her back in trying to get herself out. Ginny went in deeper, and Hermione wobbled to the side and fell in deeper herself. There followed several confused minutes of flailing up to the surface of the drift.

The griffin trilled at them wistfully from her sticky prison, and Ginny burst out laughing. Hermione was laughing and red in the face from the wind. Ginny reached over and swept some of Hermione's out-of-control hair back, and Hermione smiled down at her.

Hermione was surprisingly warm, and Ginny thought that she kissed as well as she did magic, really. It wasn't until they looked at each other again in the fading light that Ginny wondered how that had happened.

The griffin peeped hopefully, and they both dissolved into giggles.

The two of them walked back to the castle slowly, the griffin cavorting on the leash that Hermione had remembered to bring, the broomstick over Ginny's shoulder. They didn't talk much at all.

***

"Potter," McGonagall said one day as Transfiguration ended.

Harry turned to her. "Professor?"

"Stay a moment, won't you?" she asked, almost too casually, as she gathered the day's equipment with a wave of her wand. A few blocks of chocolate, a few chocolate frogs, one real frog, and a few unfortunate things in-between flew to her desk.

Harry followed her up to the front of the classroom and looked down at the assortment of products from the class. "What will you do with them?" he asked after a moment of consideration.

McGonagall waved her wand, and there was a pile of chocolate frogs. "Have one if you like, Potter."

"Er," said Harry, vaguely queasy. "No thanks."

"It's about Christmas, Potter," she began, seating herself behind the desk.

"I expected to spend it at the Burrow," he said, worriedly. "I don't have to go back..."

"No, no, nothing like that," McGonagall assured him. "It's only that... well, _things_ were arranged to protect Hogwarts," she said, looking around her. "And if you and... your family... leave, even for a few days, it will be unprotected."

Harry thought about this. "Well, then, I suppose I should stay here."

"That won't do," she said, idly picking up one of the friskier chocolate frogs and examining it. "It has to be you _and_ your family."

"Uh," Harry said. "It seems kind of mean to make Ron stay here with me. Or Ginny," he added after a breath."

"Well, why don't you talk to them about it?" McGonagall asked. She took a small bite of the frog. "Ah, pecans. Two points to Gryffindor for Granger's skill. And for remembering that I rather like pecans."

***

"I'll stay, mate," Ron said. "It's no problem at all."

Ginny regarded her brother gratefully across the dinner table. She loved being with her family for Christmas, and the prospect of a cold, echoing Christmas at Hogwarts had filled her with despair.

"And, of course, I'll stay, Harry," Hermione said. "My parents were talking about a trip, but they'll understand."

In a wrenching reversal from those few words, Ginny felt desperately left out, like she had only a month before. The three of them were a whole, inviolable, unreachable. Even after the time she'd spent with them... and spent with Hermione... she felt like a... a... what did Hermione call it? A grouper.

Just then, an owl managed to land on Ron's head.

"What?" Ron exclaimed. "Who?"

"Errol," Ginny, Hermione, and Harry all said at the same time.

Ron flailed at his head. Errol wobbled dangerously. Harry managed to grab the owl off Ron's head before anyone's dinner became a casualty.

Harry extended Errol to Ginny, feet-first. "Thanks," she said, and removed the scroll. Errol began to snore gently in Harry's hands as she handed the letter to Ron.

Ron opened it and exclaimed. Heads at the table turned toward them curiously.

"Bad news from home?" Lavender Brown inquired.

"Oh," Ron said. "I suppose. Only my mum and dad want to spend Christmas at Hogwarts."

Lavender frowned and traded baffled glances with Parvati. "Why would they do that?"

Hermione cut Ron off before he could speak. "Just a family joke, really. They always tell them that."

"Yeah," Ginny chimed in. "I can't believe Ron still believes them. Every year!"

"Hey," Ron said.

Lavender and Parvati both giggled and went back to their conversation. Ginny caught a glimpse of the magazine they were poring over: _Love Signs--Special Harry Potter issue!_ She tried not to laugh.

Ron looked indignant. "Now I look stupid."

"It's all right," Harry said hurriedly. "No one will notice, really. What was that about your parents?"

"Hey!" Ron said, even more indignantly.

Ginny snatched the letter out of his hands and scanned her father's crabbed scrawl. "We're to have Christmas here," she said, and flashed a hesitant smile across the table at Hermione. "They'll bring everything. So we can all spend Christmas together."

Hermione smiled back at her. Ginny felt a rush of elation.

"Well, good," Ron said. "Saves worry."

Harry looked relieved. "I'm glad I'm not ruining anyone's Christmas."

"Oh, Harry," Hermione chided. "You couldn't possibly do that. But I admit that this way will be more..." She searched for the right word, and settled on, "familial."

***

"Harry," said Mr. Weasley. "Help me fetch the presents from the Floo? That's a lad."

Harry cheerfully walked with Mr. Weasley to the Floo that had brought him and Mrs. Weasley, the twins, and Charlie in from the Burrow. Bill was in Egypt again, and had sent along a card with dancing, singing mummies that Mrs. Weasley had shared with everyone upon their arrival at Hogwarts.

Mr. Weasley glanced aside at Harry a little nervously, and finally said, "So, er, how are things?"

"Fine," Harry said as they reached the pile of presents. "The Quidditch team's doing well this year. Ron's improved as a keeper, and Ginny's fabulous as a Chaser. Our Beaters aren't as good as the twins, but, well, who is?"

Mr. Weasley nodded, adjusting his glasses. "That's, er, great, Harry, just great. I, um, meant with Ginny."

"Oh," Harry said, deflating a little, and opting to pick up an armful of gifts just then. "Things are all right."

"Really?" Mr. Weasley asked around his own armful.

"Yeah." Harry thought for a minute and added, "They were a little difficult at first, but I think it's okay now."

"Grand," Mr. Weasley said. "Really grand. Ginny's a fine girl. A little young for all this, sure, but she's a lot like her mother. High-spirited and tough as nails."

"Ah," Harry said.

"Let me tell you the secret of a happy marriage, Harry."

"Oh?" Harry wondered what sort of wisdom was forthcoming.

Mr. Weasley lowered his voice. "Always say you're sorry."

Harry blinked. "Always?"

"Always," Mr. Weasley said firmly.

"What if you're right and she's wrong?"

"Apologize anyway," Mr. Weasley said. "Works a treat, really."

"Arthur?" Mrs. Weasley called down the hallway. "What's taking so long? We were afraid the Floo had eaten you!"

"Coming, Molly," he replied cheerfully. "Sorry."

Harry followed Mr. Weasley back into the common room, pondering.

He wasn't there long before Mrs. Weasley neatly cut him out of the group and got him off in a corner.

"Now, Harry," she said, holding his shoulders and looking at him. "You've got taller."

"Have I?" he asked. "Really, around Ron I always feel short."

"He _has_ got tall, hasn't he? But you've definitely grown. It looks good on you."

Harry blushed slightly. "Er. Thanks."

"So," she said, lowering her voice a little, "how are... things?"

Harry felt like an old pro at this already. "Just fine. Really."

"She's a good girl, Harry," Mrs. Weasley said a little mournfully. "I'm sorry this happened so suddenly, but I couldn't ask for a nicer son-in-law."

"Um," Harry said, brain starting to sputter quietly. "Thanks."

Mrs. Weasley looked at him fondly. "Lily was red-haired too, you know," she said. "Beautiful auburn color. I suppose that maybe at least some of the children will be ginger."

His brain went into a stall. "Um, uh, children?"

"Well, not right now, of course," Mrs. Weasley said. "But I never thought my youngest child would be closest to making me a grandmother."

Harry's brain was in a steep dive and beginning to spin when Ginny appeared at his elbow and said, "What are you two doing over here? The _eggnog_ is over _there_." She managed to get between them, hooking both of their arms and guiding them back toward the side of the room where the family was gathered, and where Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore had just come in through the painting. "Of course," she continued, "Fred and George whipped it up, so who _knows_ what it will taste like."

Harry looked down at her with a sudden grateful fondness, and she smiled back. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mrs. Weasley's expression change from anxiety to relief. He realized--thanks to his enforced illumination by Hermione--that Ginny had orchestrated that just for her mother, in addition to rescuing him.

He thumbed his invisible ring and wondered what other talents would suddenly materialize in his wife.

***

Ginny tried hard to maintain a suitable detachment from the process of opening presents, but still got a little misty-eyed from her parents' enthusiasm for Harry's presents. Well, the presents from her and Harry.

Mr. Weasley was ecstatic over the ice shaver, and exclaimed over everyone's cleverness (Ginny and Harry were careful to include Hermione's name on the gift as well) in converting it to work on magic. He insisted on feeding everyone a round of shaved ice with every single flavor squirted on. It left a peculiar aftertaste in Ginny's mouth that reminded her unpleasantly of Potions class, despite the sweetness.

Mrs. Weasley actually burst into tears over the teapot, after several minutes of opening other, more practical gifts. Ginny had remembered that her mother's most treasured teapot--her brother Gideon had given it to her not long before he died--had been irrevocably destroyed by one of the twins' early magical accidents. Ginny had spent a headache-inducing evening hunting through catalogs for something similar.

Harry, she noticed, looked acutely embarrassed.

Just then, Mr. Weasley descended upon the party, passing around a new serving of shaved ice. "I ran out of those flavor thingies," he said, "so I tried it with butterbeer!"

Everyone tried some. The twins seemed to like it, and started discussing other alcohol-based possibilities in a lively fashion with Harry and Charlie.

Ginny, Hermione, and Mrs. Weasley had a couple of poker games with Professor McGonagall.

"Wow," said Hermione, after Mrs. Weasley had wiped them all out for the fourth time. "You're good."

Mrs. Weasley smiled. "Thursday night's ladies' poker night," she said. "Keeps me in practice. Arthur's poker group won't play with me any more."

"Well, I'm out of beans _and_ chocolate," Professor McGonagall said. "You've got it all, Molly. I seem to recall that you frequently cleaned out the other girls in Gryffindor."

Mrs. Weasley shrugged, looking innocently heavenward. "I managed to get the Hufflepuffs involved, too. Dumbledore complimented me on fostering good inter-house relations."

Mr. Weasley appeared again, grinning broadly. He handed round another set of small cups of shaved ice, this time with a dark substance spread over the scoop.

Harry, without really looking at it, scooped a spoonful into his mouth. He nearly fell off his chair. "Marmite?" he exclaimed with some horror.

"Bit strong," Mr. Weasley admitted.

"We figured it was a Muggle thing," Ron said, looking sheepish. "So we tried it."

"Uh," Harry said. "Yeah."

Hermione quietly used her wand to clean out her cup while Mrs. Weasley was looking the other way. Ginny noticed McGonagall doing the same. Ginny, curious, tasted hers. The flavor was powerful enough to burn, and certainly did not belong on shaved ice.

She rose swiftly, bore down upon the sleepy griffin, scooped her up, and said, "Dad! I don't think you've met Dora!"

Within minutes, she'd ensconced her father in a comfortable chair near the boys, sleeping griffin in his lap.

"Arthur has such a calming presence," Mrs. Weasley commented, taking up her knitting and beaming fondly upon her now-dozing husband. "I used to give him the babies when they were fretful and out like a light they all went."

"Along with him, it looks like," McGonagall said with a chuckle.

***

After a long nap, Dora awoke with a vengeance, bounding from person to person, trilling excitedly. While everyone was distracted by Professor McGonagall calming the griffin, Fred and George seized Harry by the arms and carried him off to the deserted sixth year boys dorm.

"We thought that, now you're part of the family--" Fred began, dropping a small object on the floor.

"We should make sure you're entirely up to speed," George finished, tapping the object with his wand. The thing telescoped upward and sprang open as a stand holding a large flipchart.

"On what?" Harry asked faintly.

"The facts of life," Fred said, gesturing at the flipchart, which obligingly opened to a page announcing THE FACTS OF LIFE.

"Oh," said Harry. "I'm pretty sure I've got it."

"Let's make sure, shall we?" George said, and the first page flipped over.

"We're sure you have the basic principles," Fred said.

"As illustrated here," George added.

"Agggh!" Harry said.

"But what about the details?" Fred asked as the page turned.

"Now this is what most people think of," George explained.

"But it's really the most boring position," Fred added.

"Now the major variants include this--" George said. The page turned.

"And this--" Fred said. The page turned.

"And this," George finished as the page turned again.

"But really the possibilities are endless," Fred said.

"Including ones that use furniture," George said. The page turned.

"So you should feel free to let your imagination run wild," Fred explained.

Then they both turned to him and said, simultaneously, _"But not with our sister."_

Harry felt his eyes get very large. He suspected that his face was redder than it had ever been before.

"Now, _this_ is fun no matter how you do it," George said, turning the page.

"And includes endless variety," Fred added.

"Including this--" George said. The page turned.

"And this--" Fred said. The page turned.

"And this!" George said with a grin. The page turned.

"That's _his_ favorite," Fred said conspiratorially.

"I'm very fond of the illustration too," George explained.

"Uh-huh," Harry managed.

"But, as we said, the diversity is endless," Fred said, turning the page.

"This is something to experiment with," George said.

Again, they both turned to him and said simultaneously, _"But not with our sister."_

Harry tried to press his back through the stone wall. It didn't work. His pulse was pounding in his ears, and he was convinced that most of the blood in his body had taken up residence in his face.

"Now _this_ is the third main style," Fred said. The page turned.

"Notice that it can go like this--" George said. The page turned.

"Or like this--" Fred said. The page turned.

"Really, all the categories in the first style can apply here," George said. The page turned.

"Without the need for any spells, like you need in the first," Fred added.

"This one is a great deal of fun, really," George said.

"You should definitely try it someday," Fred said.

Both of them said, _"But not with our sister."_

"Now, while the first three basic styles are what people generally think of," said George, flipping the chart once more.

"There are actually many more things you can do," said Fred. "Such as this little number."

"While the illustration is a little less impressive--" said George.

"It's actually a lot more fun than it looks," added Fred, tapping the chart. The couple on the page sped up.

"Because nudity is optional," said George. "This one's good for a quickie."

 _"But not with our sister,"_ they added together.

"Lastly," said Fred, as the page flipped over to an illustration that would have instantly turned Harry tomato-red if he hadn't been boiled-lobster already, "this is an important category in itself."

"You can see how it lends itself to a wide array of techniques, not unlike categories One and Three," George added, as the page flipped again.

"One of the advantages of this one is that the positions are just about infinite," enthused Fred, flipping the pages rapidly to show at least half a dozen different illustrations.

"This is one in which skill really counts, Harry," George said sincerely.

"So you need to practice a great deal," said Fred.

 _"But not with our sister,"_ they chorused.

"You may have noticed that all the styles other than the first are gender-neutral," George said. The page turned.

"Not so much gender neutral, really--" Fred said. The page turned.

"--as fun for anyone," George finished. The page turned.

"We definitely advise trying all styles and variants," Fred said.

"At some point in your life," George said.

Both of them said, _"But not with our brother."_

"That concludes today's presentation," Fred said. The page turned and read THE END.

"We hope you've found it informative," George said, tapping the apparatus. It closed up into a little ball again.

"Welcome to the family, Harry," Fred said, solemnly shaking his hand.

"Welcome to the family," George said, shaking his hand.

"And remember," Fred said.

"If you have any questions--" George said.

"Or problems--" Fred said.

"Or just need a bit of advice--" George said.

Both of them said, "Just come to us."

Grinning widely, they made their way out of the room.

Harry heard them go down the stairs. He, meanwhile, remained pressed against the wall. He didn't seem to be able to convince his blush to stop, or his eyes to close. He suspected that some of those pictures would haunt his dreams.

Ron wandered in a few minutes later. "There you are, Harry." He studied Harry for a moment. "Are you okay?"

"Ron," Harry said weakly.

"Yeah?"

"When you get a girlfriend?" Harry said.

"Yeah?"

 _"Keep the twins away from her,"_ Harry said urgently.

***

Ginny dragged cheerfully up the stairs of the tower from the very Weasley Christmas in the Common Room, her newest Weasley jumper keeping off the late night chill. Some commotion broke out below and, as her mother began bellowing, she retreated with more speed from the latest Fred and George prank.

Her own room felt cold and lonely, so she passed it by and knocked on Hermione's door.

"Come in."

Ginny poked her head in, and found Hermione, sitting up wakefully, reading a book. "Hi," she said shyly.

"Hi," Hermione said, closing the book and setting it aside. "Everyone going to bed?"

"Not yet," Ginny admitted, sliding into the room and closing the door behind her. "I just got tired."

"Want to sleep in here tonight?" Hermione asked, shifting over to give Ginny room on the bed.

"If you don't mind," Ginny said, kicking off her shoes and sitting next to Hermione.

"I don't mind at all," Hermione said. "You really tired?"

"I thought I was," Ginny admitted, "but now that I'm up here, I'm pretty awake."

"Want to play cards?" Hermione inquired in a suspiciously bright tone.

Ginny studied Hermione for a moment, then allowed, "I... sure."

Hermione pulled out a familiar box, opened it, and drew out the deck.

Ginny said, "Um. Hermione. Isn't that...?"

Hermione blinked at her innocently. "Yes?" she said, tapping the Disrobing Deck and starting its shuffle.

Ginny stared at her for a moment. "You... I... _Oh._ "

Hermione smiled, and Ginny was startled by the amount of mischief there. "Shall we play Spit in the Cauldron? It goes so much faster than other variants."

Ginny's smile twitched wider. "Not _too_ fast, I hope."

***

The holidays went far too quickly, as far as Harry was concerned. Well, possibly not fast enough to get the twins out of Hogwarts; they kept grinning at him, and he kept wondering nervously if they'd managed to charm some sort of "Kick Me!" sign onto the back of his Weasley jumper. But he enjoyed being around Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, and Charlie continued a good-humored harbor of safety from the twins' antics.

No snakes turned up during the holidays. Harry wasn't sure whether it was because they were holed up somewhere against the chill, or because the griffin had hunted them out and no fresh supplies came during those weeks.

The term began with the news that Hagrid was delayed another few weeks wherever he was, which meant that Harry and Ron had to greet Seamus, Dean, and Neville with excessively bright smiles, a griffin in hand, and plenty of chocolate frogs as bribes.

Neville stared in horror.

"You," said Dean, "have _got_ to be kidding me."

Seamus said, "I think I'm going to get myself a supply of Proteus potions and move into the girls dorm."

Ron said, "Chocolate frog, anyone? How about these great ice mice from Honeydukes?"

"Ron," said Dean, "If you think that you can _bribe_ us into putting up with that _thing_..."

Dora poked her head out of Harry's curtains and Neville squeaked. "She's... got... _big_!"

"Kittens do that, Neville," Harry said.

"She's a lot bigger than most kittens," said Neville.

"Fred and George sent me a consignment of their new hot buttered rum balls," Ron offered a little desperately, extending a tin.

"What do those turn you into?" Seamus asked in a flat, cynical tone. "Harry's cousin?"

"No, that would be hot buttered dum-balls," replied Ron. Harry suppressed a snicker.

"I got new pyjamas for Christmas," said Neville sadly. "Now they're going to be shredded."

"She's got lots less destructive," Harry said defensively. "And look, Dean, I got you a new pillow for Christmas."

"Thanks," Dean said, grudgingly poking the extremely fluffy pillow.

Dora leapt down onto the floor, spreading her wings to a gliding landing. She pranced up to the boys who had just entered, greeting them all enthusiastically with her newest trick, which was not only to do her little head-twisting dance, but to go up on her tiptoes, lifting one, then the other leg in a little dance, while waving her tail ecstatically. Her wings spread upward and vibrated happily.

"The power of the cute commands me," Seamus said, flumping down onto the floor and stretching out a hand. Dora rubbed against his hand and nibbled gently at his wrist.

"You've got her more trained than you admit," Dean said, sighing heavily. "She reads hand signals or something."

Neville got down onto hands and knees and bumped heads gently with the griffin. "Okay, so I guess I missed her."

"Sugar-Shock Honey Sticks?" Ron offered.

"We've got enough sugar shock right here," Seamus said, accepting one anyway.

"All my teeth are about to rot out," Dean commented, sitting on the foot of his bed.

"How many more -- ow -- weeks?" Neville asked, flat on his stomach, with Dora standing on his back. She thoughtfully plucked another hair from his head.

"At least three," Harry said.

"Mind control," Dean said. "It has to be."

***

"Wow," breathed Ginny. "And you get to use this bathroom any time you want?"

"It's one of the few perks of being a prefect," Hermione said.

" _Few_?" Ginny squeaked, staring around at the shining tile and elaborate fixtures. "Why didn't you show me this before?"

Hermione tapped the towel table, which promptly produced a stack of fluffy white towels. "I was waiting until you finished that round of detentions, so we could have a whole evening in here. I didn't want to interfere with your study schedule, either," she added, in quite a good imitation of her usual stern tones.

"Study schedule?" Ginny said, watching Hermione turn a tap that started to fill the enormous sunken bath with steaming water.

Hermione smiled. "I intend to take this evening off. I hope you did your studying this afternoon."

Ginny felt her eyes get big and round. "The door locks, right?" she said.

"I sealed it," said Hermione, then waved her wand casually at Ginny, murmuring a charm Ginny didn't quite catch.

Ginny supposed she shouldn't have been very surprised when her clothing started to... remove itself. Slowly, and neatly, but inexorably. It was an odd sensation. "Where did you learn that spell?"

"It's similar to the Disrobing Deck," Hermione said, looking just a touch smug. She began to remove her clothing in a more conventional manner.

"You learned it from the _twins_?" Ginny exclaimed. "Hermione, you _didn't_!" Her voice was a little muffled by her jumper just then drawing itself over her head.

"I was discreet," said Hermione, sliding into the steaming water. "Come on then."

"I thought I was the bold one," complained Ginny, and joined her.

"You're bold when it counts."

"What does this tap do?"

"I haven't tried them all."

"Eeee! In our house colors too!"

"An ocean at sunset!"

"Look! Dolphins at play!"

Much splashing and giggling ensued.

"Aphrodite rising from the foam of the sea."

"Who's that? Eeek!"

"Your education is shockingly lacking in some places."

"Oh, do _educate_ me, then. Mmmmm. Look, the lovely hills of Atlantis rising again from the depths."

"But they cannot compare in beauty to the white-sanded islands of Greece."

"Hey, it's not my fault I'm so pale. Put it down to being a redhead."

"Are these the topless towers of Illium?"

"Ooooh, you're going to get such a ducking for that pun!"

Much later, Ginny said drowsily, resting her head on the side of the bath, "The twins are going to ask you a favor, you know, for teaching you that spell. They always ask for _something_."

"I dealt with that already," Hermione said placidly.

***

"Hey, Harry," Ron said. "Fellows? Game of poker? I just found a fresh pack of cards in my trunk."

***

The Gryffindor table was awfully quiet that morning. Neville, who was usually subdued, was instead entirely silent, refused to raise his eyes from his bowl of porridge, and ate so fast Ginny was afraid he was going to choke. Seamus was in an oddly good mood. Dean, on the other hand, was particularly grumpy. Ron and Harry just seemed shell-shocked.

After asking Ron three times to pass the salt, Ginny gave up and asked Seamus. He passed it to her and she traded him the basket of muffins. He dumped a muffin on Dean's plate.

"Buck up," he said. "It isn't how you win or lose, it's how you play the game!"

This got him a withering glare.

Neville muttered without looking up, "You know, Seamus, that would be more comforting if you hadn't been the one who won."

"Look, would you fellows have preferred if I'd stripped off too?" Seamus demanded. "It's nothing we haven't seen in the past six years."

"It's the principle of the thing," Ron said, while Ginny choked on her pumpkin juice and swiveled an accusing glare at Hermione. Hermione raised one eyebrow at her and continued to chew her bacon daintily.

"I would've been fine," said Harry mournfully, "if only the griffin hadn't got into the act."

"Nah," said Seamus. "We all knew you were bluffing that hand."

"Do the scratches still hurt?" Neville asked.

"You know," Dean said finally, "I reckon that game would be a lot better with butterbeer."

"Could be you're right," said Seamus thoughtfully.

Ron and Harry exchanged a look of alarm.

Seamus looked up, beaming, as Terry Boot and Michael Corner happened by. "Hey, fellows. Care to play some wizard poker tonight?"

***

"When is Hagrid due back, Harry?" Ron asked after the griffin had just kicked him in the stomach and danced off to the end of her very long, magically stretchy lead. It was a Christmas gift from Professor McGonagall to the griffin. Apparently, the Head of Gryffindor was rather taken with the little beast.

"Any time now," Harry said, peering toward Hagrid's hut. "At least, that's what the last letter said."

"I wish he'd... here, what's she got into?" Ron exclaimed, hauling on the leash without any result.

The griffin was pouncing and trilling and making little predatory head-twist motions over something in the snow. Harry felt his stomach go cold and broke into a run.

"Oh, no," he said, feeling queasy. "Oh, no, no, bad griffin, bad griffin!" He grabbed her harness and pulled her away.

"What is it, Harry?" Ron said, catching up to him and grabbing him by the arm. "Oh..."

There was a deep, narrow trench in the snow. Pressed into the bottom of it was an array of dead snakes, all of the same size and variety that they'd been finding in the castle. There was a little blood, a bright dot here and there from a crushed snake.

"She didn't do it," Ron said. "It was all done already. By something... else."

Harry pulled the griffin into his arms, and she trilled at him inquiringly. "No, she didn't do it," he said.

Ron looked along the trench. "It... it looks like there's snakes all along it. Why would they come out into the snow?"

"I don't know," Harry said. "Let's... let's go find Hermione. Maybe she'll have an idea."

***

Ginny was leaving the library. She had promised Hermione she would study for three hours, and she had; now she was going to leave the library before she screamed or threw a stack of books at the students arguing Quidditch moves or got up on the table and started reciting her notes like poetry.

How Hermione could study in the Gryffindor common room-- with the griffin-- was utterly beyond her.

She stepped outside into the hall and paused a moment to lean against the wall and close her eyes. When she opened them again, Luna Lovegood was leaning against the wall right in front of her.

Ginny blinked. "Hello," she said.

"Hello," said Luna. "People are saying that you're going out with Harry Potter." She gave Ginny a misty smile.

Ginny gave Luna a slightly too-toothy smile. "That's odd, given that I keep telling people I'm not."

"I know," said Luna peacefully. "I've also heard that you're going out with Hermione Granger."

Ginny's stomach did a little flip-flop and she stood up.

"Isn't that strange? It isn't often that rumors have the same person going out with both a boy and a girl. It would make for an interesting headline, except of course that we don't have a school newspaper and if we did it wouldn't print information about that sort of thing, and anyway it would be far more interesting to have the headline be about the ten-fold Kneazle-King that's living in the Forbidden Forest." Luna continued to lean against the wall.

Ginny tried to absorb all this and failed singularly. "What's a Kneazle-King?"

"Oh, haven't you heard of one? It's when a litter of Kneazles are born with their tails all tangled together, so they become one creature." Luna tilted her head back and studied the ceiling. "It's very rare to find one."

Privately, Ginny thought that even Kneazles were unlikely to survive such an event. "Have you seen it?"

"No," replied Luna, "but I hope to. Is going out with two people very complicated?"

"I'm not going out with two people!" said Ginny.

Luna nodded wisely. "The Forbidden Forest is not a very good environment for Kneazles. It's quite interesting that there should be a Kneazle-King there."

Ginny had an uncomfortable vision of all her brothers tangled up into a Weasley-King, tied together by their jumpers. She shook her head to get rid of that oddly disturbing image.

"Oh, I agree," said Luna. "Perhaps it's frightened of notoriety and hiding out there."

"Perhaps," Ginny agreed weakly.

"Would you return this to Hermione? I'm going to do some research for my Arithmancy project now," said Luna, handing Ginny a book. "Tell her that I wish her all the best," she added, and drifted into the Library.

Ginny stood there stunned for a moment, then looked down at the book: _Cryptozoology: A Study of What's Hidden in Plain Sight._

***

As the three of them entered the Room of Requirement, Harry was immediately aware of a hubbub from the tanks.

"They're definitely upset," he said, walking across the room.

"What about?" Ron asked.

"Hang on," Hermione said. "Let him listen."

Harry looked down into the tank of smaller snakes and listened. The snakes were agitated, moving from wall to wall, trying to climb the smooth glass. One had wedged itself between the lid and the wall on a tiny ledge and was battering at the lid with its nose. At least one other snake had bloodied itself on the glass. The words he could gather were fragmented, barely comprehensible, but he could make out, repeated over and over, _Calling_ , in a sort of pained tone.

He heard Hermione gasp nearby, and looked over. She and Ron were looking down into the tank with the larger snakes. "What?"

"One has killed itself," Ron said in a tone that suggested he was feeling sick.

Harry stepped over. The other two snakes seemed dazed, and weren't nearly as agitated as the smaller snakes. "Lift the lid for me?" he asked, and Hermione did so. He reached in, saying, "It's all right, I'm not going to hurt you, but you can't leave," to the others.

The two snakes hissed a sort of acknowledgment to him, but one still tried to strike at his hand as he lifted the dead snake out. He spoke sharply to it, and it subsided.

Hermione and Ron made sure the lid was down tight as Harry looked around for something to do with the body. After a moment, he said, "Well, I guess I can just... throw it out the window or something."

Hermione picked up a shoebox that happened to be near at hand. "Here. Put it in here. I'll take it out."

"Ginny'll be upset," Ron said. "She's been taking care of the snakes every day, you know."

Harry felt guilty that he hadn't known. He was having that experience a lot lately, even though he was really trying to do better. "I'll tell her," he said.

"What were they saying?" Hermione asked.

"Something about a call," Harry said.

"A summoning, then," Hermione said thoughtfully. "But _why_?"

Harry threw himself into a chair. "It doesn't make any sense. He sends the snakes here. He calls them out into the snow. They die."

"What about that trench?" Ron asked, pouring out tea for the three of them.

"All the snakes were going in the same direction," Hermione said, adding sugar and milk to hers. "They were going to him, maybe? Is he trying to get his inside information?"

Ron stuffed a biscuit into his mouth and mumbled around the crumbs, "Remember, we all thought he was pretty stupid to send a lot of spies here with no way to get the information back."

Harry said, "But it's winter. The snakes would _die."_

Ron shrugged. "They all thought he was crazy anyway."

"Maybe he only needs a few of them to survive," Hermione said thoughtfully. "I wonder what information he was looking for? We should really tell Dumbledore about this," she added, sipping her tea.

"You and Ginny keep saying things like that," Harry said, irritated. "But look, what would he do if we _did_ tell him?" He set his cup down so angrily that he sloshed tea on the table. "Probably make some cryptic remark, wink at us, and _still_ expect us to fix it! Isn't that what he _always_ does?"

Hermione and Ron stared at him for a moment, then glanced at each other. "I... suppose you're right," Hermione admitted. "I just... well, you know, the professors are _supposed_ to be there to take care of things like this. It's hard for me to think otherwise, despite," she added grimly, "copious evidence to the contrary."

Harry held up his left hand and tapped his ring with his thumb. "This is the proof that Ginny and I carry every day that the professors expect us to solve everything," he explained, a little calmer. "They just decided how to use us and went ahead and did it. We had no choice. I know they _said_ she had a choice, but _you_ know Ginny. She wouldn't have said no even if I was Malfoy! I'm just glad they didn't decide that we had to have kids for the spell to work. Dumbledore probably would've just _waved_ his _wand_ since we're 'too young for marital duties' and Ginny would've been the holy mother of the heir of Potter. Poof!" He waved his hands around for emphasis.

"Without any of the fun bits," Ron added.

"All _right_ , Harry," Hermione snapped, finishing her tea. "You've made your point. We won't tell the professors. _Until we know more._ And then, you're probably right, we'll end up doing the job in the end. You've been brooding on this, have you?"

"For years," Harry said bitterly, adding more sugar to his tea.

"I'm glad we've only got one more year here," Hermione said. "Then you can go on to brood about larger things, like the government."

"Oh, please," said Harry, "I've been doing that for a few years too."

"I'll manage your campaign to become the Minister of Magic, if you like," Hermione said. "Or would you rather run Hogwarts?"

"After he's a professional Quidditch star," Ron said hastily. "He can't waste a talent like his."

"Of course," Hermione said, nibbling on a petit four. "He'd need the high profile recognition of being a Quidditch star _on top of_ being the Boy Who Lived."

"A hermit," Harry growled. "That's what I'll become. Living in the furthest reaches of Scotland."

"He's a grump today," Ron said to Hermione, jerking a thumb in Harry's direction.

" _Tell_ me about it," she replied. "I wonder how we put up with him sometimes."

"That's our job," Ron explained. "Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger, professional putters-up-with Harry Potter."

"Maybe we'll get special awards when we leave school," Hermione suggested.

"Medals from the Ministry," Ron said. "Then I can show mine to my grandkids."

Harry glowered at them.

"'Gosh, Grandpapa,'" Hermione said earnestly, staring at Ron with large, shining eyes. "'Did you _really_ put up with the Boy Who Lived when he _shouted_ at you?'"

Ron put on a gruff voice. "Well, of _course_ I did, kids. And all the times he was hopelessly cranky and feeling persecuted too!"

"'But I thought he was a shining paragon of wisdom and strength!'"

"Can you be a shining paragon when you brood?" Ron wondered.

"I'm certain even shining paragons brood _occasionally_ ," Hermione assured him.

"ALL RIGHT!" Harry roared, trying not to smile.

"Do they shout too?" asked Ron.

"Apparently," Hermione replied.

"I think someone hasn't had his kitten dose today," Ron confided.

"Despite the fact that it's his turn to walk her?" Hermione said.

Harry put his head down on the tea table and laughed helplessly.

***

"Where did she _go_?" Ron fretted as they hurried down the hall.

"How did she get away from you?" Ginny asked Harry.

"I don't _know_ ," Harry said, peering into the rafters. "One minute, I'm just taking her out for the usual walk, the next minute, the leash just pops out of my hand and off she went!"

Hermione turned the corner ahead of them. "Oh, _no_ ," she moaned, and bolted forward.

The other three hurried to catch up, and saw what had made her exclaim: the doors to the Library were open. Hermione was standing in those doors, one hand over her mouth.

"What's up?" Ron asked, peering cautiously into the room. "Oh, no," he groaned.

"How did she get up there?" Harry wondered.

"How did she get there like _that_?" Hermione exclaimed.

Ginny looked in. Dora was sitting amidst the various arms and curlicues and whatnot of one of the chandeliers in the Library. She was almost entirely enmeshed in her leash, which was also wrapped intricately around much of the structure of the fixture itself. The griffin chirruped hopefully at them.

"We can't _Accio_ her from there," Harry said. "She'd strangle."

"Thank goodness Madame Pince is out," said Hermione. "There must be a Staff Meeting. She never leaves the library, else."

"But when is she going to be back?" Ron said.

The four looked at each other in dismay, then surged into the room.

Ron and Harry climbed onto the tables closest to the chandelier. Hermione and Ginny handed up chairs for them to stand on.

"I'm really not sure about this," Harry said, stepping onto the chair a little unsteadily. "I still remember how much it hurt the last time we tried to do this."

"Are we anywhere near?" Ron asked, stretching.

"Close," Hermione said. "Can you edge just a little more this way?"

The griffin, watching all this, became excited and wiggly. The chandelier began to sway back and forth. This made the griffin nervous, which meant that she fidgeted as well as wiggled. The chandelier began to swing at the end of its heavy chain.

Harry and Ron moved their chairs to the very edges of the tables, then they stretched out to reach for the chandelier as it swung this way and that.

"Ow!" Ron exclaimed. "She clawed me!"

"Ouch!" Harry exclaimed. "Me too!"

The griffin had one paw free of the leash and metalwork, and was squawking and batting at the hands when they came close.

Hermione fidgeted nervously, concentrating on the scene so strongly that she started to sway lightly, too.

Ginny felt the oncoming rush of doom that must accompany two nervous wizards attempting to rescue an oscillant griffin. It made an interesting, if nerve-wracking, tableau, though; Ron and Harry standing on chairs at either end of the table, and the griffin swinging between them on the chandelier.

"What," said the perfect voice of doom, "do you imagine that you are doing?"

All four Gryffindors turned slowly to face the doorway. The griffin trilled. Ginny expected that the pendulum of the chandelier was counting down Gryffindor's points.

"Potter, Weasley, get down," Snape said. His wand was already in his hand. "I don't care if you break your necks, but Madame Pince would dislike having to clean up the mess."

Harry and Ron scrambled down and carefully lifted the chairs off the table.

Snape gestured with his wand at the pendent chandelier and its occupant. Ginny was just close enough to hear him mutter, " _Extraho_."

The griffin was drawn toward Snape, but the leash did not release her. She snapped abruptly back into place with a squawk and a flurry of feathers. The chandelier now swung vigorously in figure-eights. Dora seemed to object and said so, loudly.

Harry opened his mouth to say something to Snape, but Hermione trod on his foot hard.

Snape looked more irritated than ever, and snarled, mostly under his breath, " _Extrico_ griffin!"

The leash writhed, unwound itself, and retracted to its normal length. With a happy crowing sound, the griffin leaped away from the light and glided around the ceiling briefly. Then she trilled sweetly and stooped affectionately upon Snape.

Chaos ensued.

"Fifty points for inappropriate use of the Library," Ron sighed as they hastily departed, griffin in arms. "Ten points each! It's not far, taking points from Dora, it wasn't her fault."

"It was ALL Dora's fault!" said Harry, glaring at Ron.

"And detentions," Ginny snarled. "Like I have time to serve detentions with the man on top of his endless essays."

"I don't even know if Dora really has to serve her detention for being an excessively friendly mascot," Harry said.

"I think we can check with Professor McGonagall on that," Hermione said.

"It was worth it to see her try to groom his hair," Ron said.

***

Harry hummed to himself as he strolled into the locker room, broom over his shoulder. He'd lingered out on the pitch after practice was over, getting in a bit of extra flying to clear his head. The mystery of the dead snakes, as well as the continuing mysteries of married life, were far easier to ignore with the wind in his face.

In front of his locker, he kicked off his shoes, set his broom and glasses down, and peeled off his robes and the sweaty vest underneath, still humming.

 _Har... ry... Pot... ter_ something said.

He looked around wildly at the apparently empty locker room. As he groped for his glasses, his foot snagged on something cool and smooth and moving. He fell sideways.

There was a sickening crunch as he fell across the bench.

Something laughed at him nearby.

He rolled away from the shattered remains of his glasses, a few pieces of glass coming with him, embedded in his stinging hand, elbow, and side. He tried to get to his feet, only to feel something strike hard across the backs of his ankles, sweeping his feet out from under him.

An enormous _thing_ loomed over him. It hissed _Har... ry... Pot... ter.._.

He scrambled backwards, slamming the back of his head against another bench. Through the flashing lights and vast blurriness, he tried to see where it had gone.

_Master wants you dead now, Harry Potter. You, or your... family._

Imbued with new energy, despite his aching head and bleeding hand, he clambered onto the bench and leapt from there to the top of the lockers.

_That will not save you, Harry Potter._

The mystery of the dead snakes crystallized suddenly. Voldemort had summoned them, like the surviving snakes had said, out to where they would freeze to death in the snow. And then Voldemort's pet had followed that trail of corpses into Hogwarts, when no other means would let Voldemort in.

"Is he telling you to say that now?" Harry asked, squinting over the edge of the lockers, trying to spot the snake.

_I do not need to be told, Harry Potter. I know._

"So you can't actually talk to Voldemort now?" He tried looking over a different edge. He wished he had his wand, but it had been securely in the sleeve of his robe.

Deadly fangs flashed up toward him, and he flung himself over on his back, nearly falling off the lockers. The metal was cold on his bare back.

 _I know his mind,_ the snake replied.

"So you can't! Talk to him, I mean." A wave of relief made him dizzy. It was one thing to be facing a giant poisonous snake, but it was quite another if that snake _also_ is being remote-controlled by one's deadliest enemy, who might be able to cast spells through the snake.

A door opened and closed. It took Harry a moment to realize that it was the door to the locker room. He rolled over, squinting.

"Harry?" Ron's voice echoed through the room.

_Smells like you, Harry Potter. Is this your family?_

"RON!" Harry yelled, spotting the thick, moving black line on the floor driving straight for the ginger head. "LOOK OUT!"

As far as Harry's limited vision could tell, Ron's goal-keeper reflexes saved his life. He spun toward Harry just in time to see the snake launching itself at him. His hands seized its neck, keeping the fangs away from him, but the impact threw him backward into the wall, where he slid down, still holding the snake firmly behind the head.

Harry sighed.

Then the snake snapped her immense body around Ron's body, constrictor-like. Ron let out a loud grunt and began struggling with the snake, clearly having problems keeping her face away from him.

"It's really... strong!" Ron managed to squeak out.

***

"I wonder what's taking Harry so long?" Hermione said, tapping her foot.

"He wanted to fly a bit more," Ginny explained.

"He's going to miss dinner," Hermione fretted.

"Worse, he'll make US late for dinner," Ron moaned. "I'll go see if he's come in yet."

Ron trotted down the hall to the Gryffindor boys locker room and went in.

The two girls waited.

And waited.

"Taking too long," Ginny said, and she trotted down toward the door.

"Ginny!" Hermione hissed as Ginny reached for the doorknob. "It's the _boys'_ locker room!"

Ginny gave Hermione a jaded look. "Hermione, I have six brothers. If you think that I haven't seen..."

There was an immense crash.

Followed by Harry's voice, loud, urgent, and incoherent.

"Right," Hermione said, pulling out her wand. Ginny did the same and opened the door.

An entire row of lockers had been heaved over. Barechested, Harry was straining to pull the ugly triangular head and dripping fangs of a giant snake away from Ron. Ron, for his part, was nearly blue, struggling weakly against the coils wrapped around him and gasping for the least breath.

Ginny dived forward, seizing the snake just below Harry's hands and heaving with all her might. Her weight made small difference in the position of the snake's head.

 _Oh, perhaps I've made a mistake_ the snake said in a nasty tone. _Perhaps this new one is your family, and the one I have is only... incidental._

Harry's eyes snapped open. "Ginny, get away!"

Ginny was already flinging herself backward, having felt the snake's body shift, but she couldn't quite get out of the way of the head that had suddenly reversed its direction. She saw stars as the heavy, blunt thing slammed across her face, and the breath was knocked out of her by her collision with a locker.

She heard Hermione shouting spells. Ginny, inhaling with a painful whoosh, heaved herself to her feet and onto her wand, a few feet away. Blood dripped from her bashed nose, and her eye was already swelling. She pressed the back of one hand to her face, trying to stem the flow. Harry was hauling Ron to his feet, and Ron's face was turning back to a more normal color.

 _Bothersome mouse!_ the snake snapped. Ginny saw its upper body rise abruptly across the room, and saw it make a strange, convulsive motion.

Ron collided with Hermione a split second after the snake spat. He yelped once as he was struck by some of the venom and again as the two of them stopped short at the wall. "Hot," he exclaimed, squinting at his shoulder.

Hermione wordlessly ripped his robes off. Ginny could see why; there were fumes rising from the venom, and it had already eaten through the outer robes and started on his shirt. Hermione was getting the shirt off as well, and Ron, apparently feeling the heat, was dancing and wriggling out of the burning fabric.

"Where's my _wand_?" Harry cried, on his hands and knees, squinting at the floor.

Ginny managed to get breath to squeak, " _Accio_ wand!" She caught Harry's wand neatly as it shot out from under the wrecked lockers. "Here!" she tried to say, but only managed to whisper.

He leapt to his feet and took it from her. "Thanks," he said. They left smears of blood on each others' hands in the exchange.

She tried to focus on the constant hissing commentary of the snake, trying to track it around the room. Harry seemed to be doing the same thing.

Hermione said, urgently, "Harry, my spells didn't have any effect on it. We have to get out of here!"

"No," Harry said, distractedly. "If we go, she'll just start attacking people randomly, and she'll kill some of them, even before we can get to McGonagall."

"One of us could go," Ron said.

Harry snapped his head around to look at Ginny. "Ginny, _you_ go get McGonagall--or anyone! Even Snape."

"Not leaving," she said. "Maybe..."

At that moment, the snake struck down at her from a ceiling beam. She fell backwards, pointing her wand and yelling, "Stupefy!"

All four of them had apparently cast it at the same time, and the snake carried on past her as if they'd sprayed a refreshing bit of water on it. It didn't bite her.

"It's _playing_ with us," Hermione snarled.

"Why don't you just finish _me_?" Harry yelled at the snake, and it took Ginny a moment--and a glance at Ron's confused face--to realize he was speaking Parseltongue. "Isn't that what you're really here for? Come on, quit playing around and do your master's bidding!"

 _Are you so eager to die, Harry Potter?_ the snake inquired.

"I want this over with!" he shouted.

 _So be it,_ the snake replied without emotion.

Ginny shrieked a warning, but Harry was already dodging to the side. He snapped, " _Impedimenta!"_ and Ginny was startled to realize that the snake actually hitched up in its strike.

Hermione dragged Ron back by his belt, or he would have thrown himself on the snake's tail. "Not the tail, Ron!" she shouted.

Harry was on the floor scrambling backwards, shouting, "Stupefy! Stupefy! STUPEFY!" The snake was pausing to shake its head at each one, and its body convulsed behind it. That gave Harry a chance to get to his feet.

 _Your spells are like the teeth of a rat in its death throes,_ the snake said with some irritation.

Hermione seized Ginny's shoulder. "When he casts in Parseltongue, the spell almost works!" she snapped.

Ginny gave Hermione a wide-eyed stare as she tried to comprehend. Then, as Ron screamed, "HARRY!" she turned to see the snake coiling for a strike.

Ginny and Harry hissed, "STUPEFY!" simultaneously, and the snake, in mid-air, fangs inches from Harry's bare chest... stopped. And fell to the side.

Harry stared across the room at Ginny, and she gave a tiny, embarrassed shrug.

The four of them sighed.

Hermione pressed a handkerchief into Ginny's hand. "Oh, your poor face," she said sadly.

Ginny's eye was almost swollen shut, and she could taste nothing but blood. "Madame Pomfrey will fix it quick enough. Ron, are you all right?"

Ron grinned weakly. "Cracked ribs, I think," he said, probing gently at one side.

"Thanks," Hermione said to him, touching his shoulder lightly.

"No problem," he replied.

***

Harry slid down the wall and sat quietly, staring at the snake and just starting to notice the sensation of blood dripping down his side.

"Harry, come away from the snake," Hermione said, offering a hand up. "Come on."

He slid himself back up the wall carefully. When he took Hermione's hand, she helped him stand upright. "I'm okay," he said.

"No, you're not," Hermione said. "You're bleeding, and you've left some on the wall. The three of you wait here... watch the snake. I'm going for Professor McGonagall."

"Right," Ron and Ginny both said.

Hermione ran out the door and the three of them stood there silently for a few minutes.

"Did the snake just twitch?" Ron asked.

"Dunno," Ginny said.

"I think it did," Harry said.

"What do we do if it wakes up?" Ron asked.

"We hit it again," Ginny said, reasonably.

"Let's..." Harry ran his uninjured hand through his hair. "Let's shove her in a locker. I don't really want to... try to fight her again."

"Good idea!" Ron exclaimed.

Ginny looked skeptical as Harry and Ron tried to lift the immense, dense bulk of the snake and fold it into a locker. Ron cried out when he twisted the wrong way and breathed too deeply, and Ginny sighed and took his place helping Harry. Harry shot her a grateful smile as they struggled with the limp, heavy coils.

"Potter! Weasley! What are you doing with that monster?"

Harry jumped guiltily, and lost his grip on the snake, which tumbled out of the locker and bowled Ginny over. He shoved seeming metres and metres of snake out of the way to help her back up. Hermione waded in to lend a hand.

"Come along," McGonagall said. "We have to get you three to Madame Pomfrey. Potter, Weasley, you may want to put shirts on."

"In his current condition," Snape intoned, "Potter would no doubt start riots."

Harry looked down at himself and realized he was only wearing the tight, padded, yellow leggings that went under his Quidditch robes. His naked chest was smeared liberally with blood and broken glass. He blushed and looked around vaguely for his robes.

"Here," Hermione said, pushing a large towel into his hands. "Just wrap up. Everything's too topsy-turvy to find your things."

Ginny helped Ron carefully drape the remains of his robes around his shoulders.

"What a disaster," Snape said, looking over the wreckage.

"On the contrary," McGonagall said, nudging the snake with her foot. "I rather think that if this thing had got into _any_ of the dormitories, _that_ would have constituted disaster."

"So naturally there will be points for Gryffindor," Snape grumbled as he levitated the coils of the snake with his wand, peering at her head clinically.

"An excellent idea," McGonagall said sunnily as she herded the quartet of Gryffindors ahead of her toward the door. "The Headmaster should be here shortly, Professor."

Harry stopped. "I should stay," he said, turning to McGonagall. "She's immune to spells except in Parseltongue."

"The snake is immune to the sorts of spells _you_ can cast, Potter," Snape informed the ceiling. "Contrary to popular belief, you are not indispensable in this situation. Move along."

"Oh," Harry said, too dazed even to bristle at Snape's tone, and allowed Hermione, Ginny, Ron, and McGonagall to chivvy him out the door.

***

"I'm glad we didn't have the griffin with us," said Ron. Dora was occupying herself on the walk by flying out as far as she could make the leash stretch, and then letting the contracting leash glide her back in. She occasionally crashed into Ron's head.

"She would have eaten the griffin!" said Ginny in horror.

"She nearly ate _us,"_ said Harry glumly.

"Look at it this way," said Hermione comfortingly. "The stay in the infirmary wasn't nearly as long as usual, and now you've got something to hold over Snape's head."

"Too bad she didn't eat Snape," muttered Ron.

"Ron! Ew!" exclaimed Ginny. "That would give even Voldemort's _snake_ indigestion."

"I kinda wonder why she didn't kill him when she escaped," Harry said thoughtfully.

Hermione leaned over and said to Harry, "Because she _recognized_ him, you _dolt_. Remember?"

"Oh," said Harry uncomfortably.

"D'you think he let her go on purpose?" Ron asked.

"No," the other three chorused.

"Really, Ron," said Hermione. "He's still in the hospital wing."

"Maybe we should send him a card," said Ginny, just a little too innocently.

Harry gave Ginny a very blank look.

Ron said, "Have you gone mental?"

Hermione snorted delicately.

Ginny said, "I sent him one of my singing ones. After all, he _was_ injured defending the school."

Harry said, "I hope someone sends him a bowl of fruit, then."

"Oh, I've improved the spell," Ginny said. "If you shut it, it sings even louder."

Harry winced in involuntary sympathy.

Hermione valiantly changed the subject. "I like your new glasses, Harry."

"Yeah," Ron said, examining them as best he could with a periodic griffin in the face. "They're, um..."

"Exactly the same as the old ones," Harry said with a grin. "Dumbledore gave me a choice between my old ones or ones like his."

"I don't know, you might look smashing in Dumbledore's glasses," Ginny said thoughtfully.

"That's all I need," said Harry gloomily. "To have the school starting rumors that I'm actually Dumbledore's secret lovechild."

"Grandchild," said Hermione. "Really, Harry. As if anybody would cast doubts on your parentage."

They arrived at Hagrid's hut, and Harry was cheered by the sight of smoke rising from the chimney. "C'mon, Dora," he said to the griffin. "Let's go introduce you to your new dad."

***

Ginny held Dora's leash as they exited Hagrid's hut.

"Well, he _liked_ her an awful lot," Hermione said soothingly. "It was a good thought, Harry."

"How was I to know that he was allergic to cats?" Harry said, watching the griffin burrow into a snowdrift in Hagrid's garden. She excavated something that Harry _hoped_ was an oddly-shaped gourd and romped off with it.

"He thought her name was lovely," said Ron. "We'll have to tell Neville."

"He did say that he hoped we'd bring her to visit a lot," Hermione said.

"How am I going to explain this to Professor McGonagall?" Harry said, holding his head in his hands.

"Oh, stop it," said Ginny. "You know she's utterly smitten with the little beast already. Just get on her soft side. Tell her that poor little Dora is homeless. Come to think of it, _she_ must know that Hagrid is allergic to cats, given her... talent. How come she didn't tell us?"

"Yeah," said Harry thoughtfully. "I guess she didn't tell us either."

"And she does have a soft spot for cats," said Hermione.

"Well, I say brilliant," said Ron decisively. "We've got a mascot! We never had one before!"

"There goes all good relations with our roommates," Harry muttered.

"She'll get over the kitten stage eventually," said Hermione.

"By that time, all my roommates are going to want to tie me up with her leash and hang me up for a kitten toy," he snarled.

"Hey, she's partly my fault," Ron said. "I helped convince you to get her."

"I am not forgetting that," said Harry.

"They'll tie you up together," Ginny said innocently.

Hermione choked.

The blank looks on Harry and Ron's faces were so identical that Ginny had to dash after the griffin to prevent herself from giggling.

***

"Ginny?" Harry asked, trying to be casual. The griffin was draped over his shoulder in a boneless sort of way.

"Yeah?" she said, not looking up from her essay.

"You're a Parseltongue."

"Yeah."

Harry considered that while trying to remember what form of government the goblins in Ireland had in the 1300s.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked finally. "And _don't_ say because I didn't ask."

Ginny tapped her nose thoughtfully with her quill. "Remember Rita Skeeter? And the Hufflepuffs?"

"Oh. Yeah."

"Yeah."

"But _I_ wouldn't think... that..." His sentence came to a screeching halt in the face of her deeply sarcastic look.

"Harry," she said.

"Yes?" he replied meekly.

"How do you think I _got_ to be a Parseltongue?"

He stared at her blankly and then said, "Oh."

Then he said, "Since first year, huh?"

"Yes," she said.

Harry sat there awkwardly, listening to the sound of her quill scratching across parchment. The moment was broken up by the arrival of Hermione and Ron, back from rounds.

Hermione said, "Hi, Harry," as she rounded the table and leaned down to look over Ginny's shoulder.

"Anything exciting happening tonight?" Harry asked.

"Nah," Ron said, throwing himself into a chair. "Just Snape hobbling about the halls, making a nuisance of himself."

Ginny looked up at Hermione and gave her a brilliant smile. Harry blinked. When had he ever seen Ginny smile like that before?

Hermione smiled back and leaned down to say something in Ginny's ear.

Harry stared at them, and they, oblivious, giggled about whatever Hermione had just said. Hermione never once looked at Ginny's essay, which struck him as the strangest thing of all.

"Ginny?" he asked after a moment.

She glanced over at him. "Yes?"

"Are you... is... I... um..." Harry blushed.

Ginny looked at him blankly.

Hermione looked at him blankly, for a moment, then said, "Yes," and kissed the top of Ginny's head.

Even Ron couldn't miss that, despite his Quidditch magazine. "Yes? Yes what? What are you two doing?"

Ginny said, "Ron. I am not giving details to my brother."

"WHAT?" said Ron. He spluttered, "You? Hermione? Details?"

"Details?" Harry echoed.

Ginny and Hermione looked at each other. "Private details," Ginny said firmly.

"You're not old enough," said Hermione.

"We're exactly as old as you are!" said Ron.

"Would you prefer I said 'mature'?" said Hermione.

Harry said, in a way that, after a moment, reminded him of only a few minutes earlier, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Maybe you have a different definition of 'discreet' than I do," Ginny said.

Harry's ears burned. "It's just that... you're both my good friends."

Hermione blushed slightly. "Sometimes it's fun to keep a secret for a while. And... I wasn't sure how you and Ron were going to take it."

Ron gulped. "I guess... it's okay as long as you don't make each other cry."

Harry laughed and covered his face with one hand. He was a little dizzy with something that he couldn't immediately identify. It felt oddly like relief. "I'm... actually glad, I think."

The griffin raised her head sleepily and prodded his ear gently with her beak, trilling. He scratched her cheek.

"Well, I figured if I was going to go out with someone, it should be someone in the family," Ginny said.

***

Ginny felt a little nervous as she went down to breakfast on Valentine's Day. She always felt nervous as she went down to breakfast on Valentine's Day, ever since she had spectacularly embarrassed herself (on account of Harry Potter, she noted with irony) her first year. For some reason, Valentine's Day was just linked with embarrassment. Also, she was nervous.

She tried to seem normal as she sat down to breakfast, but couldn't help noticing that Hermione wasn't meeting her gaze. Her heart fell into her stomach. Since her stomach was then full, she felt no appetite for breakfast. She glanced at Harry, who was stolidly eating toast and trying to make out his Potions notes from the day before.

She glared at him. He took no notice, so she poked him with a spoon.

He glanced up. "What?" he said, spraying her lightly with crumbs. "You're fifth year, I don't think you're getting a quiz today. Unless he really wants to be a bastard to _everyone_ on his first day back."

She leaned close, confident that Hermione wouldn't hear, since Hermione was reading a book. "What's up?" she whispered.

Harry possibly would have looked less confused if she had turned into an owl.

"With Hermione," she amplified.

Harry turned his head to regard Hermione as if she might have turned purple in the last few seconds. "Looks fine to me," he said.

Ginny cradled her head in her hands, inwardly cursing the stupidity of boys. "Where's Ron?" she demanded.

"He'll be late," Harry said. "He was just getting out of bed when I was getting dressed."

"Where _is_ everybody this morning?" asked Ginny, looking around at the table. Several Gryffindor faces were missing.

"People must've been rambunctious last night," said Harry, peering closely at his notes, apparently trying to tell whether something was a word or a stick figure drowning in a river.

A passing Ravenclaw girl giggled at Harry's comment, drawing a raised eyebrow from Ginny.

Then the owls started pouring in the windows and Ginny tensed. Her gaze slid sideways to Hermione. She watched as the anonymous school owl she'd commissioned dropped the large package of chocolate and enchanted roses in front of Hermione. Oh, dear. Was it too ostentatious?

An owl landed in front of Ginny. She blinked at it, and it hooted at her irritably. The package did look... heavy. She reached out in a daze to untie it. Inside the package were several books and a small elegant box from Honeydukes. Ginny felt her face turning red. She leaned backwards on the bench to peer around Harry.

Hermione leaned backwards on the bench to peer around Harry, holding the bouquet of roses. "You shouldn't have, you know," she said, apparently fighting her own blush.

"I wanted to," said Ginny.

"They're beautiful," said Hermione.

"Be thankful I didn't enchant them to sing," said Ginny.

Harry said, "Be very thankful."

Hermione whapped him with the roses. Gently.

Ginny got up and moved around Harry to sit next to Hermione so they could look at the books together.

Harry grinned conspiratorially at Ginny. "I told Hermione to get the chocolates too," he said.

An owl landed in front of Harry. Harry said, "Get off, that's my breakfast!" It shook its message-laden leg at him. Harry reached out and pulled the scroll off.

"My breakfast," said Harry. "It landed in my breakfast. And not even by accident either!" He unrolled the scroll and scanned it.

Ginny was selecting a chocolate when she became aware of a vast silence from Harry's direction. She glanced up. Harry was reading the scroll again, a peculiar flush starting to creep up his face.

"Harry," said Hermione, looking concerned. "Is it bad news?"

"I... uh... what..." stammered Harry. "No." Then he did blush and jammed the scroll into the sleeve of his robes.

Another owl landed in front of Harry.

"Is that my Daily Prophet?" said Hermione.

"No," said Harry in a faint voice. "It looks like another letter." He reached out and took it slowly. Another owl arrived while that one was departing. Then one landed on his shoulder. One dropped a package into the remains of his breakfast.

Ginny looked up and said, "Incoming!" as she saw an entire flight of owls headed for the Gryffindor table.

Pretty soon, there was no more room for owls, so they started dropping the letters in Harry's general vicinity. Several bounced off his head and shoulders. Most of them tried to put the packages down gently, but Ginny retreated under the table after being brained by something she was pretty sure was a box of chocolates. Hermione joined her in a moment, pulling a letter out of her hair like an odd ornament.

"Is he still sitting there like a statue?" Ginny asked.

"A very red statue," Hermione said, examining the letter curiously.

"Oh, that's mine!" Ginny exclaimed, spotting her own handwriting on the letter in Hermione's hand.

Hermione raised her eyebrow. "Yours?"

"Well, yeah," Ginny said, feeling a blush creeping up on her. "I mean, I thought it's sort of my wifely duty and all. Besides, I was afraid he wouldn't get _any_." A muffled explosion-sound and something that was probably meant to be a cheerful tune drifted down from the table above.

Hermione smiled. "Yeah, I never expected this..." She waved her hand generally overhead. "I'm sure he didn't either."

"Something tells me," said Ginny, "that Professor McGonagall would not call this incident 'discreet.'"

"Leave Harry to other people's indiscretions," said Hermione, "and let's go commit some of our own."

the end

### END NOTES

(because this is too large for the end notes field)

We included a number of references, and wanted to note more precisely whence they came because we thought this information would be fun for people who might not be familiar with the original works.

**Babylon 5** : Chapter Three. "Did I mention that my scar has vanished? And I'm hiding a dozen baby nifflers in my shirt?" This seems oddly reminiscent of a certain scene with Marcus from "Messages from Earth."  
 **John Bellairs** : Chapter Four. "Harry sat down and eyed the bowl of sweets mistrustfully. It was sitting next to a snowglobe in which a tiny castle was besieged with glowing snowflakes." Bellairs used the snowglobe image a few times, but I believe we were thinking of _The Face in the Frost._  
 **John Bellairs** : Chapter Five. "Let's start with one of the simpler variations, like Salem Stud. There's lots more complex games, like Bon Sour One Frank and Wands At The Door. But we'll start with the basics." Bon Sour One Frank, of course, is what Lewis calls poker in _The House With a Clock In Its Walls._  
 **Lewis Carroll** : Chapter One. ""To Professor Snape. A Missive From the Headmaster Not Regarding Croquet In Any Manner Whatsoever." Oblique reference to the invitations to the Queen of Hearts's croquet game in _Through the Looking Glass._  
 **Wilkie Collins** : Chapter Five. "Marian Fairlie" is a portmanteau of the two main female characters in _The Woman in White,_  
 **Doctor Who** : Chapter Four. "Dumbledore was quietly writing at his desk. He looked over his glasses at his visitor. 'So, Harry, how are you getting along? Sit down, have a jelly baby.' Dumbledore is apparently a fan of the Fourth Doctor.  
 **Edward Gorey** : Chapter Four. "Ron pointed at a nearby cage. 'I mean, like this thing. It just stares.'/Harry studied the tag, which read "YAWFLE" and had a short treatise on the habits of the animal. 'You're right,' he said after a moment. 'It does. But it's sort of... fluffy. And cute. In a stare-y sort of way.' Description and name of the Yawfle from _The Utter Zoo Alphabet._ You might also recognize these: "They passed by a cage of small, long-eared beasts that were pirouetting oddly to the sound of a nearby gramophone, and stared, perplexed, at a lizard-like thing hanging contentedly by its tail, which was knotted around a nail" (same source).  
 **Barry Hughart** : Chapter Four. "As he clattered down the first few steps, he heard Dumbledore sigh and mutter something that sounded remarkably like, 'Ah, to be ninety again.'" Master Li from _Bridge of Birds_ and its sequels has been known to utter this phrase.  
 **Invader Zim** : Chapter Six. "'Why,' asked Snape, 'is his head so... big?' This is, of course, one of Gir's taglines.  
 **Shirley Jackson** : Chapter One. "'I beg your pardon,' Snape replied coldly./ 'Granted,'" It really should be "I beg your _humble_ pardon, but that didn't sound right... _Raising Demons._  
 **Shirley Jackson** : Chapter Six. "Ginny felt the oncoming rush of doom that must accompany two nervous wizards attempting to rescue an oscillant griffin. It made an interesting, if nerve-wracking, tableau, though; Ron and Harry standing on chairs at either end of the table, and the griffin swinging between them on the chandelier." The term "oscillant" is blatantly borrowed from Jackson's hilarious "oscillant chipmunk," in _Life Among the Savages._  
 **Diana Wynne Jones** : Chapter Four. "In the window gamboled strange yellow walking-stick creatures that reminded Harry of nothing so much as pencils with legs." These look a bit like the walking pencils from _The Ogre Downstairs…" (We retain all the credit for Evershed, Barke, and Chewe, though.)_  
 **Linda Medley** : Chapter Six. "The snakey dissension settled down. One small voice exclaimed Skeereeee monsterrrr!" Reference to _Castle Waiting_ (Book One).  
 **Terry Pratchett** : Chapter Two. "but that one leaped up onto tiny legs and ran away, screaming, "Up th'middie wha hae!" in a tiny voice. For some reason, it sounded like swearing." This is suspiciously like one of the Nac Mac Feegle. _The Wee Free Men._  
 **Terry Pratchett** : Chapter Six. "'Right, then,' Hermione said, sitting back down. 'No more dozens of tiny feet.' / Harry picked the thing up gingerly. "I didn't like the way it was following me around.' / 'It was happy until you yelled at Dora,' Ginny pointed out, standing up. 'Then it was off with the kid gloves. Er, boots.'" For some reason, the ice shaver is behaving a bit like The Luggage. See the Discworld books.  
 **Dorothy L. Sayers** : Chapter Three. "Helen Climpson." Name borrowed from Miss Climpson. (see _Strong Poison._ ) You might also notice "Evelina Urquhart" (Chapter Four) and "Letty Lydgate" (Chapter Two).  
 **Revolutionary Girl Utena** : Chapter Six. "'So,' said Harry, buttering his toast, 'I heard there was a duel last night.' As he crammed the toast into his mouth, Hermione and Ginny traded glances. Ginny looked away quickly and Hermione smiled. 'A duel in the forest behind the school?' he amplified, mouth still half-full." That last phrase sounds familiar…  
 **Zilpha Keatley Snyder** : Chapter Five. "The griffin paused in her perambulations to sit up and chatter excitedly at Rolor, the raven, which was perched grumpily on the very top of the stone molding over one of the windows. It hunched its shoulders and disdained to reply." Padma's pet raven is named after the one in _The Headless Cupid._  
 **"The Two Towers" (film)** : Chapter Three. "Harry clapped his hands over his ears. 'I'm not listening! I'm not listening!'" The image of Harry as Gollum was too irresistible.  
 **Jane Wagner** : Chapter Three. ""Bataca encounter bats?" Reference to the same being used by the precocious twins in _The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life In the Universe _  
 **Bill Watterson** : Chapter Five. "'What's she got?' Hermione asked, puzzled and trying to see what Seamus was wrestling away from the griffin. The griffin, for her part, had dug in and was growling like a small buzzsaw./ 'His lucky underpants,' Harry explained. /Seamus managed to triumph by throwing himself onto his pants and crowding the griffin off. Ron gave Seamus the thumbs-up, and explained to Hermione's perplexed frown, 'He wore them for OWLs and did so well he's saving them for NEWTs.'" We are not sure whether these have little rocketships on them, but they are definitely a tribute to _Calvin and Hobbes___ 


**Author's Note:**

> Please see end of Chapter Six. This function is too limited (does not allow enough space).


End file.
